National poll: Biden, Warren and Sanders locked together at top of primary
November 6, 2019The Democratic primary has no clear leader, a new national poll conducted by Monmouth University shows, with former Vice President Joe Biden and Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders locked in a tight race.
In the poll, a full two-thirds of voters back one of the top three candidates. Biden and Warren are each at 23 percent support, while Sanders is at 20 percent. No other candidate is in double-digits, a clear dividing line between the top three candidates and the rest of the field.
South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg sits at 9 percent, Sen. Kamala Harris has 5 percent and Sen. Cory Booker and Andrew Yang are at 3 percent each. All the other candidates are below that mark.
The results represent a 5-point increase for Sanders and a 4-point bump Buttigieg over their results in a September Monmouth national poll. Warren dipped 5 points, while Biden and Harris remained largely stable. All of the candidates' movements are within the poll's margin of error.
However, Warren and Sanders were both able to close an "electability" gap in the mind of voters between themselves and Biden.
Democratic voters were asked to rate, on a scale of 1-to-10, a candidate's likelihood of defeating President Donald Trump. Biden's average score was 7.3, while Warren's was 7.1 and Sanders was 7.0. Biden's average score slightly decreased since a Monmouth poll asked that question in June, while both Warren and Sanders' score increased.
The poll did not help any candidates qualify for the November or December Democratic presidential debates.
Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard did not pick up the fourth poll she needs to qualify for the debate on Nov. 20. Candidates need to hit 3 percent in four polls approved by the Democratic National Committee and receive donations from 165,000 supporters. Gabbard, who has already hit that mark in three polls and has publicly said she has more than that many donors, garnered less than 1 percent support in the Monmouth poll. Qualification closes a week from today, on Nov. 13.
The Monmouth University poll was conducted from Oct. 30- Nov. 3 and surveyed 345 voters who identify as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party. Those results have a margin of error of +/- 5.3 percentage points.
Source: https://www.politico.com/