Poll: Biden leads Democratic field, Warren and Sanders jockey for second

Former Vice President Joe Biden leads the pack of Democratic presidential contenders, while Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) are running neck and neck for second place, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released Monday.

With 30 percent support nationally among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independent respondents, Biden is in his strongest position since August, when a similar Quinnipiac survey showed him hitting 32 percent. 

{mosads}Warren and Sanders, meanwhile, are statistically tied at 17 percent and 16 percent, respectively. That’s well within the poll’s 4.1 point margin of error.

Meanwhile, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who has worked his way to the front of the pack in early primary and caucus states Iowa and New Hampshire, finished in fourth place in the Quinnipiac poll, earning 9 percent support.

The survey suggests that Biden’s support remains resilient, even after a series of campaign-trail stumbles, while Sanders and Warren are still jockeying for the support of the party’s most liberal voters. 

The poll also underscores the challenges Buttigieg faces, even as he has earned front-runner status in Iowa. He’s running well behind his top rivals among several key demographic groups, including black voters, with only 2 percent saying they would vote for Buttigieg in the primary, according to the Quinnipiac poll. 

Still, most respondents — 61 percent — acknowledged that they could still change their minds about whom to support in the nominating contest. About 38 percent said their minds are made up, according to the poll. 

Biden’s and Sanders’s supporters were the most committed to their respective candidate. Of those who said they would vote for Biden in the primary, 48 percent said they were certain about their choice, while 49 percent of Sanders’s supporters said the same. Among those who said they plan to support Warren, only 23 percent said their minds were made up. That number was only 17 percent among Buttigieg supporters.

Warren remains the second choice for a plurality of voters — 21 percent. Twenty-six percent of Biden supporters said they would support her if not their preferred candidate, while 28 percent of Buttigieg’s backers named her as their second choice for the nomination. That pales in comparison to the 50 percent of Sanders supporters who see Warren as the next best candidate.

The Quinnipiac University poll surveyed 1,390 registered voters, including 567 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independent voters, from Dec. 11-15. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points for the full sample and plus or minus 4.1 points for the Democratic and Democratic-leaning respondents.