HILLARY NOW SERIOUSLY CHALLENGED BY BERNIE – AT 11:46 A.M. ET:   Few seriously believe that Bernie can win the nomination, but he can hurt Hillary, who is also extremely vulnerable to the results of an FBI investigation.  From The Hill:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has maintained his lead over Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire and pulled to within the margin of error of her in Iowa, a new poll finds.

According to a NBC News-Wall Street Journal-Marist survey released on Sunday, Clinton has only a 3-point lead over Sanders in Iowa, well within the poll’s 4.8 percentage point margin of error. Clinton takes 48 percent support in the Hawkeye State, compared to 45 percent for Sanders.

That’s a much closer race in Iowa than other recent polls have found. According to the RealClearPolitics average of surveys, Clinton leads by 12.5 points in Iowa.

New Hampshire has long been a more competitive race between the two, and here the poll found Sanders leading with 50 percent of the support over Clinton at 46, in-line with other recent polling. According to the RCP average, Sanders leads by 5.3 points in the Granite State.

The Sanders campaign has been seeking to draw attention to polling that finds the Vermont senator performing better than Clinton in head-to-head match-ups against Republicans in the general election, and the NBC survey confirmed those claims.

Sanders leads GOP front-runner Donald Trump head-to-head by 13 in Iowa, while Clinton only leads him by 8. In New Hampshire the disparity is even greater, with Sanders leading Trump by 19, and Clinton only edging him by 1.

COMMENT:  The lack of enthusiasm for Clinton is startling.  The "first woman president" idea seems to have little traction.

But Republicans work hard to lose elections, so I am not ordering my inaugural tickets just yet.  Let's see who the Republicans nominate.

January 10,  2016