Biden campaign launch translates to bump at the polls
WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Joe Biden's official entry into the 2020 presidential field last week translates into a bump across three new polls released on Tuesday of the Democratic primary field.
Biden has support from more than one-third of those polled by Quinnipiac University, CNN and Morning Consult.
The former vice president holds double-digit leads across all three polls. But the polls differ as to both how close Biden's competition trails him, and in what order.
In Quinnipiac's poll, Biden's 38 percent is followed by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren's 12 percent and Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders' 11 percent. South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg is in fourth place with 10 percent and California Sen. Kamala Harris' eight percent is good for fifth place.
Quinnipiac polled 419 Democrats and Democratic leaners with a margin of error of 3.5 percent.
CNN found Biden at 39 percent, with Sanders in second place with 15 percent, Warren at eight percent, Buttigieg at seven percent and former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke at 6 percent. The network polled 411 Democrats and Democratic leaners and the poll has a margin of error of 5.9 percent for that subset.
And Morning Consult pegged Biden at 36 percent, followed by Sanders' 22 percent, Warren's nine percent, Buttigieg's 8 percent and Harris' 7 percent. That poll's results came from 15,475 registered voters who told Morning Consult they "may" vote in a Democratic primary or caucus and has an error margin of one percent.
Other interesting takeaways from the polls include:
- Quinnipiac's survey finds that Democrats and Democratic leaners think Biden has the far and away best chance of beating President Trump, with 56 percent naming him the best candidate to defeat Trump, with Sanders following with just 12 percent.
- Quinnipiac also found Biden up 10 percentage points since late March, Warren up 8 percentage points, Sanders down 8 percentage points, Buttigieg up 6 percentage points and O'Rourke down 7 percentage points.
- CNN found that a majority of Democrats and Democratic leaners want their nominee to take "aggressive action" on climate change, provide "health insurance for all Americans through the government," take action on gun control and make public colleges tuition free.
- The Morning Consult survey found that more than one-third of respondents didn't know enough about Buttigieg to have an opinion on his favorability, despite the fact that his 8 percent was good enough for fourth place in the poll.