According to a pair of well-regarded national polls, the Democrats officially have a new frontrunner: Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.
Since early June, when she was polling at less than 8% by average and former Vice President Joe Biden was dominating at around 33%, Warren’s prospects to win the nomination have consistently and rapidly improved. By last week, Real Clear Politics‘ average of the national polls showed Warren and Biden in a dead heat.
While over the last few days Biden has edged ahead again in RCP’s average, a few recent polls say Warren is the true frontrunner now.
In a poll released a day before the fourth Democratic debate, which was held in Ohio Tuesday night, Quinnipiac found Warren leading Biden by 3 points.
“Warren receives 30 percent of the vote among Democratic voters and independent voters who lean Democratic, while Biden gets 27 percent,” Quinnipiac reported Monday. The same poll conducted last week (Oct 8) likewise found Warren ahead of Biden by 3 points: 29 to 26 percent.
Quinnipiac shows what amounts to a two-candidate race, with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders a distant third, managing to earn just 11 percent of the vote. South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg came in fourth at 8 percent, and Sen. Kamala Harris fifth at 4 percent. No other candidate managed to earn more than 2 percent.
“For Senator Warren, the third straight time essentially tied at the top is the charm,” said Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy. “Her candidacy clearly has staying power going into the debate.”
Asked who would be the best leader, Warren has also surged up to a close race with Biden, the former earning 28 percent of the Democratic and Democratic leaning voters’ endorsement as the best leader while the latter earns 32 percent.
The results of Quinnipiac’s studies were similar to a recent Economist/YouGov poll that found Warren topping Biden by 4 points: 29 to 25 percent. As Quinnipiac found, Sanders came in a distant third with 14 percent, while Buttigieg and Harris came in tied at fourth at 5 percent.
RCP’s current average of the national polls shows Biden leading with 29.4 percent while Warren holds 23.4 percent of the Democratic vote by average.
Biden’s lead in RCP’s average is helped by a recent Morning Consult/Politico poll giving him a healthy 11-point lead over the Massachusetts senator: 32 to 21 percent. The Morning Consult poll also shows Sanders and Warren in a virtual dead heat, with the Vermont senator earning 19 percent, far better than Quinnipiac’s results and over 3 points better than RCP’s average.
A Fox News poll released last week likewise gave Biden a strong lead over Warren, 32 to 22 percent. That poll gave Sanders 17 percent of the vote.
Another poll that helped give Biden a boost in RCP’s average is a study released last week by The Hill/HarrisX showing Biden with a dominant 14-point advantage over Warren, 31 to 15 percent. The Hill poll is an outlier in that it showed Sanders in second with 17 percent.
All of the recent polls list Harris and Buttigieg at a distant fourth or fifth and no other candidates able to garner as much as even 5 percent of the Democratic vote.
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