Two new polls show Biden with big edge on Warren, Sanders

A new national poll from Quinnipiac University finds former Vice President Joe Biden holding a solid lead over Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Democratic presidential primary race.

The Quinnipiac results were similar to another poll released Wednesday by USA Today–Suffolk University that also had Biden in the lead.

Biden won 32 percent in the Quinnipiac poll, compared to 19 percent for Warren and 15 percent for Sanders.

No other candidate registered double-digit support.

{mosads}In the Suffolk poll, the former vice president led with 32 percent support, a healthy 18 points ahead of Warren. Sanders was the only other candidate with double digit support at 12 percent.

The Quinnipiac survey also showed a rather static race. Warren dropped 2 points from Quinnipiac’s survey earlier this month, while Sanders gained 1 point. 

The two polls are the latest to show Biden with a healthy lead in national polling. 

They come after a survey by Monmouth earlier this week pointed to a tighter race between the three candidates. Biden’s campaign argued the Monmouth poll was an outlier, noting it had a small sample size of Democratic voters.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), at 7 percent; South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D), at 5 percent; and entrepreneur Andrew Yang, at 3 percent, are they only other candidates to receive above 1 percent support in the Quinnipiac poll

In the Suffolk poll, Harris, Buttigieg and Yang also occupied the next tier, scoring between 3 and 6 percent support. No other candidates cleared 2 percent.

The two polls are bad news for two other candidates, billionaire activist Tom Steyer and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii). 

Neither won 2 percent in either poll. That’s the threshold under rules established by the Democratic National Committee to qualify for the next Democratic debate. Candidates must get at least 2 percent in four qualifying polls in addition to getting 130,000 donors to qualify. Steyer needs just one more poll to qualify, while Gabbard needs two more polls. The deadline for meeting those qualifications for the September debate is Wednesday.

Quinnipiac surveyed 648 Democratic voters and independent voters who lean Democratic from Aug. 21 to 26 by landline and cellphone. The margin of error for the sample is 4.6 percentage points.

Suffolk University surveyed 424 registered voters planning to vote in the Democratic primaries Aug. 20–25 by landline or cellphone. The margin of error for that sample is 4.96 percentage points.