Poll: Biden leads Sanders by 8 points nationally

Former Vice President Joe Biden leads Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) by 8 points in a new national survey, a smaller margin than what other recent polls have found. 

The latest Emerson Polling survey found Biden taking 33 percent, followed by Sanders at 25 percent. Still, that’s a 13-point swing in favor of Biden over the previous Emerson survey from April, which was conducted before Biden officially joined the race. 

Biden leads Sanders by 23.5 points in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls.

{mosads}Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) are tied for third place in the Emerson survey, with each getting 10 percent support. South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D) is at 8 percent support.

No other candidate has more than 3 percent support in the poll.

A majority of likely Democratic primary voters, 56 percent, say they remain open to changing their minds about who they support.

However, a majority of voters who support Biden and Sanders, 52 percent and 54 percent respectively, say they’ve firmly made a decision. Support for the other contenders is softer, with only 33 percent of Harris supporters, 27 percent of Buttigieg supporters and 20 percent of Warren backers saying there’s no chance they will change their minds.

A survey released on Monday found that Sanders’s support among young voters is on the decline, but the Emerson poll found him leading by 30 points over Biden among voters aged 18 to 29. Sanders leads Biden overall among voters under the age of 50, while Biden has a commanding lead over Sanders among voters over the age of 50.

The Emerson College survey of 429 likely Democratic primary voters was conducted May 10–13 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.7 percentage points.