Bernie Sanders Projects Confidence in Iowa

CLINTON, Iowa — -- Bernie Sanders no longer sounds like the underdog, but with a new poll showing him winning here in Iowa, he seemed to look beyond the Democratic Party's nominating contest and straight to the general election.

"I know that here in Iowa you see a lot of TV ads right, political ads," he said to a friendly, full crowd of about 700 people in a town that bears the name of his primary opponent. "Probably you have not seen a Republican candidate telling you the truth... 'Vote for Candidate X, he wants to cut social security, cut Medicare, cut Medicaid, cut EPA, give huge tax breaks to billionaires and by the way he thinks that climate change is a hoax.'

"Did you see that 30-second ad on TV? There's no talk about a lot of other things. That is basically what they believe," he continued.

He told the crowd multiple times, that they were going to win, as he hit Republicans on a litany of issues ranging from women's rights to climate change.

A new poll from CNN this week showed Sanders with his biggest lead in Iowa yet, beating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton 51-43 percent among Iowa Democrats. The Vermont senator spent the last two days campaigning in New Hampshire, but today both he and Clinton returned to the Hawkeye state.

Sanders, who has based much of his campaign on the idea of taking on the big, corporate banks, also gloated this afternoon that the success of his campaign was not only scaring his political opponents but Wall Street too. He proudly mentioned a Wall Street Journal interview where the head of a global investment firm said that markets were unsettled, in part, because Sanders was a viable candidate.

Sanders concluded his fiery remarks telling the crowd that the issue at hand next week is whether Iowa will be the first "to embark upon a political revolution, to lead this country in a very different direction."

"I think that is exactly what you will be doing," he said.

During her remarks just hours before in the same town in eastern Iowa, Clinton only mentioned Sanders twice Saturday.

"One of our areas of contrasts between Sen. Sanders and myself is over healthcare," she said. "It is not over the goal. We share the same goal -- universal health care coverage for every single American. But we have a real difference about how to get there."