Less than three weeks before the first votes are to be tabulated in the 2016 race for the Oval Office, recent polls found Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders locked in tight races in both the critical early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

An NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll indicated the former first lady led the liberal Vermont senator by just three points in Iowa (48 to 45 percent), with Martin O'Malley picking up just 5 percent of the vote.

Democratic Early Voting Is Too Close to Call

In New Hampshire, Sanders was actually leading Clinton 50 to 46 percent, though the former secretary of state has trimmed 5 points off the 9 point lead he held in the same survey back in October.

The poll also found Sanders outperforms Clinton in a pair of hypothetical match-ups for the 2016 general election.

Polls Show Sanders Can Win

In Iowa, Clinton led Republican front-runner Donald Trump by 8 points (48 to 40 percent) in a fictional match-up, while Sanders held a 13-point edge over him (51 to 38 percent). Pitted against Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, the poll found Cruz leading Clinton by 4 points (47 to 43 percent) in the state, but trailing Sanders by 5 (47 to 42).

In New Hampshire, Clinton led Trump 45 to 44 percent, while Sanders held a commanding 19-point edge over him, 56 to 37 percent. Cruz actually topped Clinton in the state 45 to 44, but he too trialed Sanders by the same 19-point margin (55 to 36) as Trump.

On the Republican side, Cruz led Trump in Iowa 28 to 24 percent, with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (13 percent) and political neophyte Ben Carson (11 percent) ranking as the only other two GOP candidates to register double digit support.

In New Hampshire, which holds its primaries a week after the polls close in Iowa, Trump bagged 30 percent of likely Republican primary voters, more than doubling the level of support for closest challengers Rubio (14 percent) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (12 percent).

Cruz followed at 10 percent, a point ahead of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and current Ohio Gov. John Kasich.