Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton has quickly lost her commanding national lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released Friday, just days before the primary in New Hampshire, where Sanders already leads Clinton by 30 points.
The two are now in a statistical dead heat on the national level, with Clinton garnering 44 percent support and Sanders taking 42 percent, his highest showing in any national poll to date and well within the 4.5 percent margin of error. In a similar Dec. 22 poll, the former secretary of state led the Vermont senator by 31 points - 61 percent to 30 percent.
A surprisingly large amount - 11 percent - remain undecided, according to the poll.
The dramatic national tightening comes after Monday's Iowa caucuses in which Sanders lost to Clinton by a 0.2 percent margin, the closest race in the history of the Iowa Democratic caucuses, notes MSNBC.
The poll also found that Sanders performs better than Clinton when matched up against top Republican primary candidates.
Sanders beat GOP front-runner Donald Trump by 10 points and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz by 5 points, while he tied Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Clinton beat Trump too, but only by 5 points. She tied Cruz and lost to Rubio by 7 points, reports CNN.
Sanders wins in terms of favorability as well, with the highest of any leading candidate - 44 percent favorable to 35 percent unfavorable. Clinton, on the other hand, has one of the worst favorability ratings in the entire field, with 39 percent saying they view her favorably compared to 56 percent who view her unfavorably. Only Trump did worse, with a 34 percent favorable to 59 percent unfavorable.
On the Republican side, despite losing the Iowa caucuses to Cruz, Trump still leads field with 31 percent support, followed by Cruz with 22 percent and Rubio with 19 percent. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson trailed in fourth with 6 percent, while the rest of the field came in with 3 percent or less.
The survey was conducted from Feb. 2-4 among 1,125 registered voters nationwide and has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points. Among the 507 Republicans, the margin of error was 4.4 percent and among the 484 Democrats, it was 4.5 percent.
