U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders narrowed the gap with leading Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton in a recent opinion poll in the political bellwether state of Iowa as support for the front-runner fell below 50 percent for the first time this year.
Clinton, former secretary of state and first lady, remained the top choice for 37 percent of likely Democratic voters in the party's nomination contest, down from 50 percent in June, according to the Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll released late on Saturday.
But Sanders, a longtime independent lawmaker from Vermont, was favored by 30 percent of respondents, skyrocketing from single-digit support early this year in the race to become the Democratic Party nominee for the November 2016 presidential election.