Chelsea Clinton in New Hampshire backing mom’s campaign

After months of mostly ignoring Bernie Sanders, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton has begun engaging her chief rival after polls show that the race in early nominating states is tightening. On Tuesday, she broadened her critique, arguing that if Sanders wouldn’t combat the National Rifle Association, he can’t be trusted to take on other special interests.

Monmouth’s survey comes two days after an NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll found Sanders narrowing the gap with Clinton in Iowa.

He said that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has “come forward with some really thoughtful approaches” to tackle that subject, but that it’s “relatively new” for her to talk about.

In Iowa, Clinton, who once held a strong lead, is now leading by only three points, at 48% compared to 45% for Sanders, falling into a 4.8% margin of error.

Democracy for America, another major progressive group that joined with MoveOn on the “Run Warren Run” bid, endorsed Sanders a year ago.

Clinton has long resisted directly targeting Sanders, fearing that such attacks would alienate his passionate supporters.

While she has locked up the vast majority of support from party leaders and large donors, Sanders has captured the hearts of many in the Democratic base with his unapologetically liberal economic message.

In an interview Monday, Vice President Joe Biden told CNN that part of the reason Clinton continues to struggle is because she is new to the income equality fight that Sanders has championed. “Like many pieces of legislation, it is complicated”, he said. Sanders outperforms Clinton in hypothetical general-election matchups in Iowa and New Hampshire, both swing states, primarily because he does better with independents. “But on the issue of guns, let me be very clear I support the president”.

Clinton won a paltry 14.6 percent of the 340,665 votes cast by members of the liberal group, which almost a decade ago opposed Clinton’s record on the Iraq war.