Sanders and Trump lead in New Hampshire, polls show

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is facing challenges in the 2016 presidential race from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and Vice President Joe Biden in Iowa and New Hampshire, while Trump is leading among Republicans, new polls showed.

Sanders has a 9 percent lead over former secretary of state Clinton in New Hampshire and is gaining support in Iowa, according to two new NBC News/Marist polls.

Forty one percent of Democratic voters in New Hampshire support Sanders, while 32 and 16% back Clinton and Biden respectively, NBC reported the polls, conducted August 26- September 2, as finding. No other Democratic candidates received more than 1% backing among voters.

If Biden is taken out of the running, Sanders’ lead is even larger, at 49%, to 38% for Clinton.

A July NBC/Marist poll had showed Clinton in the lead, at 42%, compared to 32 and 12% for Sanders and Biden respectively.

Clinton is in the lead in Iowa, but she has lost support to Sanders since last month’s poll. The latest poll showed that 38% of voters (down from 49% in July) supported Clinton and 27% (up from 25%) supported Sanders. Biden also gained support in Iowa, from 10% in July to 20% in now.

Although Biden said Thursday that he is unsure if he will seek the Democratic presidential nomination, he leads in popularity over Clinton. Biden said that his decision will hinge on whether he and his family have the “emotional energy to run.”

The new polls showed that both Democrats and all registered voters in the two states viewed Biden in a more positive light than Clinton. In Iowa, 67% of Democrats and 32% of the general electorate view Clinton favorably; for Biden the numbers are 74% and 42%. In New Hampshire, similarly, 69% of Democrats and 36% of all voters view Clinton favorably, while 76 and 46% of Democrats and all voters do so for Biden respectively.

Clinton came under fire recently for having set up a private email system, rather than using the platform set up by the State Department for sending messages.

Thousands of pages of her emails publicly released in recent months have shown that Clinton received messages that were later determined to contain classified information, including some that contained material regarding the production and dissemination of US intelligence.

But Clinton reiterated that she did not “send or receive any material marked classified. We dealt with classified material on a totally different system. I dealt with it in person.”

Clinton said Friday her use of a private email system at the State Department wasn’t the “best choice” and acknowledged she didn’t “stop and think” about her email set-up when she became President Barack Obama’s secretary of state in 2009.

Trump favorite among Republican voters

TV personality and business mogul Donald Trump is in the lead among Republican voters in both Iowa and New Hampshire, receiving the support of 29 and 28% of voters respectively.

In Iowa, Ben Carson comes in second at 22% and the rest of the candidates receive 6% or less of voters’ support. Scott Walker, who was in the lead in July at 19% dropped to 5%.

In New Hampshire, Trump is followed by John Kasich at 12%, Carson at 11%, and the rest of candidates have 8% or less support.

The Iowa and New Hampshire votes are among some of the most closely watched in the US presidential race. The Iowa caucus is the first event during which candidates can obtain the support of convention delegates, who later support candidates at the party convention. The New Hampshire primary is by definition the nation’s first.

AP and AFP contributed to this report.