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Bernie Sanders Surges Into the Lead in New Post-Debate Poll

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Support for Democratic presidential primary candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders seems to be surging in the aftermath of the Jan. 14 debate, the last before voting gets underway at the Iowa caucuses later this month.

National polling results released Wednesday by CNN reveal the radical progressive Vermont senator has shifted into the lead, with the support of 27 percent of the 500 registered Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents surveyed.

This is the first time that former Vice President Joe Biden, who garnered 24 percent support in the Jan. 16-19 telephone survey, has seen his shaky, but lasting front-runner status called into question in any of CNN’s 2020 national primary polling.

The outlet was, however, reluctant to declare Sanders the clear leader, with the poll’s overall margin of error resting at +/- 3.4 percent and the margin for error among Democrats and left-leaning voters expanding to +/- 5.3 percent.

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Still, with the Iowa caucuses and a key primary in Sanders’ neighboring state of New Hampshire fast approaching, the 2020 Democratic primary seems to be developing into something of a two-man race.

Biden and Sanders have also pulled away in the national averages in recent days, as the RealClearPolitics polling aggregate now projects the two as strong pack leaders — with 28 and 21.9 percent support, respectively — and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren falling somewhere in the low-to-mid teens.

Other candidates, like former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg failed to breach the threshold of double-digit support nationwide, according to the same aggregate.

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Warren fared no better in the CNN poll, securing 14 percent support nationally and dropping 2 percentage points from CNN’s December survey.

Sanders, on the other hand, has made significant gains in the past month, with his support among left-leaning voters rising by 7 percentage points.

Among staunch progressives — a voting base Sanders and Warren share — the Vermont senator is in excellent shape, besting Warren by a 14 percentage point margin this month in CNN’s survey.

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Those gains came directly on the heels of what seemed to be a trying week for the Sanders campaign, as CNN reported Jan. 13 that the radical progressive had told Warren during a private conversation in 2018 that a woman could not win the presidency in 2020.

Sparking no shortage of controversy, the report, which Sanders denied, came the day before before the key Iowa debate hosted by the outlet.

The allegation, believed by many to have been a staged public relations stunt and campaign maneuver on Warren’s part, was not left at the door for the Jan. 14 debate.

Instead, both candidates were asked on national TV about Sanders’ alleged remarks, and audio from a post-debate standoff between the two would later be published by CNN, drawing mass social media attention.

The debacle seems not to have effected Sanders national polling, however, judging from the outlet’s latest poll.

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Andrew J. Sciascia was the supervising editor of features at The Western Journal. Having joined up as a regular contributor of opinion in 2018, he went on to cover the Barrett confirmation and 2020 presidential election for the outlet, regularly co-hosting its video podcast, "WJ Live," as well.
Andrew J. Sciascia was the supervising editor of features at The Western Journal and regularly co-hosted the outlet's video podcast, "WJ Live."

Sciascia first joined up with The Western Journal as a regular contributor of opinion in 2018, before graduating with a degree in criminal justice and political science from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where he served as editor-in-chief of the student newspaper and worked briefly as a political operative with the Massachusetts Republican Party.

He covered the Barrett confirmation and 2020 presidential election for The Western Journal. His work has also appeared in The Daily Caller.




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