Warren holds slim lead over Sanders in Iowa, Biden in fourth: poll

A new poll shows a tight race in Iowa, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) leading the early voting state and former Vice President Joe Biden slipping to fourth.

The New York Times–Siena College poll released Friday showed Warren with 22 percent support from likely Democratic caucusgoers, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) with 19 percent, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D) with 18 percent and Biden with 17 percent. All four fall close to the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 4.7 percentage points.

{mosads}No other candidate was near the top four, who were distantly trailed by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) with 4 percent, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) with 3 percent and entrepreneur Andrew Yang with 3 percent.

The survey is among a series of recent polls showing Warren leading the field in Iowa. A RealClearPolitics average of polls showed the senator ahead of the former vice president by an average of 5 percentage points Friday morning. 

Buttigieg’s rise in the poll puts him much closer to the front-runners in Iowa than in national polls. He is in fourth place in the nationwide RealClearPolitics average of polls, trailing Sanders by 9 points.

Biden said in an MSNBC interview this week that he plans to do “very well” in Iowa and New Hampshire amid questions as to whether he can win the early caucus and primary states. 

“I plan on doing very well in both those,” he said Tuesday. “I’ve been ahead in Iowa. I’ve been ahead in South Carolina. I’m ahead in all the national polls with the occasional one that pops up that’s different.”

Researchers surveyed 439 likely Iowa Democratic caucusgoers from Oct. 25 to 30.

The Iowa caucuses are just more than three months away, taking place on Feb. 3.

More than a dozen people are vying for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

Updated at 9:08 a.m.