Washington, D.C. (April 7, 2016)— Hillary Clinton may have amassed a nearly insurmountable lead in delegates, but rank-and-file Democrats are now virtually split over which candidate should be their party’s presidential nominee. According to a newly released poll conducted for The Atlantic in partnership with the non-partisan Public Religion Research Institute, 46% of democratic and democratic-leaning voters are for Clinton, while 47% prefer Sanders. The national survey was conducted in the days before the Wisconsin primary, and it tracks other polls in the last week that found Sanders erasing Clinton’s edge across the country. The poll also finds candidate preferences diverging sharply between Democrats with stronger and weaker attachments to the party.
On the Republican side, the pattern is notably different: 37% of Republican and Republican-leaning voters say they would like to see Trump become the GOP nominee while 31% say they would prefer Cruz and 23% say the same of Kasich.
The poll also reports on many of the societal issues undercutting the campaign landscape, examining how party loyalty, religion, and ethnicity play into opinions and perceptions of gender equality, immigration and race, and economic and security concerns