Poll shows Biden with lead among climate voters

Former Vice President Joe Biden has a 9-point lead over Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) among climate-focused voters, according to a new poll released Wednesday by the Sierra Club. 

Biden wins 30 percent support in the polls, followed by Warren at 21 percent and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at 20 percent in the tracking poll conducted by Morning Consult.

It’s the same result Biden had in the last poll conducted in July, while it shows a slight increase for Warren from 20 percent, and a larger increase from Sanders who had 16 percent support in the previous survey.

{mosads}California Sen. Kamala Harris (D) saw the biggest decrease in support from “climate voters,” falling 6 percentage points from 13 percent to 7 percent since the previous tracking poll.

At the time the poll was conducted, Harris was one of two candidates who had not yet released a climate-focused policy plan. Her campaign released an outline for her $10 trillion climate plan early Wednesday morning. 

South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg also released his stand-alone climate action plan Wednesday.

The results largely mirror other national polls that have had Biden in the lead, trailed by Warren and Sanders.  

While Biden’s climate plan has been chastised by some environmentalists for not going far enough, the results indicate voters think otherwise.

The climate action plans from the three front-runners all vow to invest several trillions of dollars into transitioning the U.S. towards a renewable and clean electric grid, yet they all differ by timeline and methodology. Whether a candidate embraces nuclear energy in his or her plans has come out as one defining point.

CNN will host the first presidential forum focused entirely on climate change Wednesday night. MSNBC will hold another Democratic primary forum on the issue later this month.

In addition, the poll found that 90 percent of likely Democratic voters supported a transition to clean and renewable energy sources by 2030. The poll also found that 68 percent of likely voters support holding a climate debate, in addition to the two forums.