Not nervous but expected this as a tight race: Hillary Clinton

Washington: Trailing behind rival Bernie Sanders in two key States of Iowa and New Hampshire, US Democratic presidential front runner Hillary Clinton today said she is not nervous and always expected it to be a tight race.

"I always expected that this would be a tight race. That's the experience that I've had certainly in politics," Clinton said as the latest polls reported the gap between her and Sanders at the national level too is narrowing down.

"I'm very happy about where my campaign is, what we're talking about, the reaction we're getting. It's going to be a campaign that goes right to the wire. I'm doing all that I can to reach out to as many people to convince them to caucus for me in Iowa and then to vote for me in the New Hampshire primary and then to go on from there to South Carolina and Nevada," she said.

"No," she said when asked if she is nervous. "I just have a different sense of the rhythm of a campaign. I spent my campaign talking about the issues that people talk to me about, answering questions about what I would do as president.

Now we are in the sprint to the finish line," she said. Clinton, 68, said in his State of the Union Address, US President Barack Obama, made a compelling case about the progress that has been made, but the work that still lies ahead.

A poll released showed Sanders, 74, winning 49 per cent of likely Democratic caucus-goers in Iowa, compared to 44 per cent for Clinton. In New Hampshire, Sanders leads Clinton by 14 points, according to latest poll released by Monmouth University.

"And what I've been saying on the campaign is that we had a brutal body blow with the great recession," she said. "We are standing, we are not yet running, we have work to do.

And I think this election is so consequential because, there are two very different points of view between us and the Republicans and that's what people are going to have to choose between," Clinton said.