HUFFPOLLSTER: Bernie Sanders Is Outperforming Expectations

Bernie Sanders is more popular than ever, but he’s lagging in the delegate race and even farther behind in votes. Sam Wang and Nate Silver disagree on whether Donald Trump can get to a 1,237-delegate majority. And most Americans are unaware of the Panama Papers leak. This is HuffPollster for Monday, April 11, 2016.

SANDERS REACHES A NEW HIGH IN NATIONAL POLLS  - Jeff Stein: "The Huffington Post's polling average currently shows Bernie Sanders just 2.5 percentage points behind Hillary Clinton among Democratic voters, which is his best performance ever. Remember, he started the campaign more than 50 points behind Clinton...Back in February, shortly after Sanders crushed Clinton in New Hampshire, one Fox News poll put him ahead by 2 points among Democrats. She then proceeded to clobber him in several major statewide victories, accumulating a delegate lead that now looks virtually insurmountable . But now things appear to have tightened again. Most recent polls do still show Clinton ahead of Sanders, but three conducted in the past few weeks have shown Sanders narrowly on top." [Vox ]

But the results don't translate to his share of the vote - David Wasserman: "Sanders’s reliance on extremely low-turnout caucus states has meant the pledged delegate count overstates his share of votes. To date, Sanders has captured 46 percent of Democrats’ pledged delegates but just 42 percent of raw votes. So even if Sanders were to draw even in pledged delegates by June — which is extremely unlikely — Clinton could be able to persuade superdelegates to stick with her by pointing to her popular vote lead. Sanders already has a nearly impossible task ahead of him in trying to erase Clinton’s pledged delegate lead. He’s down by 212 delegates , meaning he’d need to win 56 percent of those remaining to nose in front…Including caucus results, Clinton leads Sanders by almost 2.4 million raw votes, 9.4 million to just more than 7 million, according to The Green Papers . ...But in the long run, even if he were somehow to win more pledged delegates, he’d probably still wind up short in the popular vote." [538 ]

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CAN TRUMP WIN A MAJORITY OF DELEGATES? - Sam Wang says yes: "If current polls accurately measure voter behavior, then Donald Trump would get a median of 1,356 delegates – almost 120 more than the 1,237 he needs for a first-ballot victory at the national convention in Cleveland. For this probability to drop to 50% [from 92 percent], his national lead would have to drop by 8.0% – this is Trump’s Meta-Margin, a measure I have previously developed for general-election Presidential races. However, if Cruz’s overperformance continues, Trump’s lead would narrow considerably, to a count of 1,280 delegates and a Meta-Margin of 2.0%. After allowing for Cruz’s potential overperformance, the probability of a Trump majority is 70% – probable but uncertain. Under such closely divided conditions, the outcome won’t be known until the last primaries, on June 7th." [Princeton ]

Nate Silver disagrees - According to FiveThirtyEight's projections, Trump is currently underperforming the targets he needs to win a majority. He currently has 92 percent of the delegates he needs to stay on track to win 1,237 delegates in the primaries. Over the weekend, Silver shared a projection via Twitter predicting that Trump will only reach 1,199 delegates. [538 ]

CLINTON BEATS TRUMP ON MOST ISSUES - Julie Pace and Emily Swanson: “In a stark warning for Donald Trump as he eyes a possible general election showdown with Hillary Clinton, Americans trust the Democratic front-runner more than the Republican businessman to handle a wide range of issues — from immigration to health care to nominating Supreme Court justices. Even when asked which of the two candidates would be best at ‘making America great’ — the central promise of Trump's campaign — Americans are slightly more likely to side with Clinton, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll. The survey does reveal some potential trouble spots for Clinton. Trump is nearly even with her on whom Americans trust to handle the economy…And despite Americans' overall preference for Clinton on a host of issues, just 20 percent say she represents their own views very well on matters they care about, while 23 percent say somewhat well. But as with most issues addressed in the AP-GfK poll, the numbers for Trump are even worse.” [AP ]

State polling shows Trump remaining divisive in the GOP - Fox News polls of New York and Pennsylvania released Sunday asked respondents how they would feel if the general election was between frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. In New York , 74 percent of Democratic primary voters said they would be satisfied, while17 percent said they would seriously consider voting for a third party candidate. Among likely Republican primary voters, fewer would be happy: 69 percent would be satisfied and 22 percent would seriously consider a third candidate. Five percent each of Democrats and Republicans just wouldn’t vote at all. In Pennsylvania , 71 percent of Democratic primary voters would be satisfied, 21 percent would consider a third party candidate and 4 percent would abstain from voting. That drops to 65 percent satisfied among Republican primary voters, with 23 percent willing to consider a third party candidate and 7 percent who wouldn’t vote. [Fox News New York poll , Pennsylvania poll ]

AMERICANS ARE BARELY AWARE OF THE PANAMA PAPERS - HuffPollster: "According to a new HuffPost/YouGov survey , just one-third of Americans say they’ve been following the Panama Papers 'very closely' or even 'fairly closely.' Two-thirds aren’t following the story closely at all, or weren’t even aware of it….Even those who are following the story at least fairly closely aren’t all that heavily invested. About one-third say they’d be outraged if the accusations are true, with 47 percent saying they’d merely be bothered and 10 percent that they wouldn’t even be particularly bothered. Among all Americans, fewer than one-quarter say they’d be outraged. Still, most don’t feel that their country is exempt from similar problems. About three-quarters believe the level of political corruption in the U.S. is higher or about the same as it is in most countries….A 51-percent majority of Americans also say that tax avoidance, even if it adheres to the law, is unacceptable behavior. Opinions, though, divide significantly across income brackets." [HuffPost ]

MONDAY'S 'OUTLIERS' - Links to the best of news at the intersection of polling, politics and political data:

-Philip Bump finds that political polarization extends beyond just Congress. [WashPost ]

-A Reuters/Ipsos survey finds that a third of Donald Trump backers say they wouldn't support the GOP if Trump is blocked from the nomination. [Reuters ]  

-David French argues that Democrats are underestimating Ted Cruz. [National Review ]

-The percentage of Americans worried about race relations has doubled in two years. [Gallup ]

-Rich people live well everywhere, but geography can determine the well-being of poor people. [NYT ]

-Thomas Bernauer and Liam McGrath find that "reframing" is an ineffective method of building climate policy support. [WashPost ]

-A Pew survey finds that fewer Americans are going to libraries. [Pew ]