Biden Loses Lead to Warren in Poll He Led by 13 Points Just Last Month
After a challenging few weeks for the former vice president, recent polling suggests 2020 Democratic primary front-runner Joe Biden is the front-runner no more.
Support for Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts surged dramatically this month and, according to the Quinnipiac University national poll, the polarizing progressive has managed to draw, if not overtake, Biden among likely Democratic voters and left-leaning independents.
Favored by 27 percent of the 561 left-wing voters polled, Warren inched out Biden by just two percentage points.
Sen. Warren is now leading the 2020 Democratic field, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll.
Watch @Morning_Joe break down the numbers.https://t.co/7STiP1rnh9
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) September 25, 2019
The slim victory falls “well within” the poll’s nearly five percent margin of error, leaving Warren’s front-runner status far from solidified, according to a Wednesday news release from the university.
But Quinnipiac pollsters suggests the results should not be taken lightly — particularly considering its last poll showed Biden to be sitting comfortably in the lead with 32 percent support, with Warren trailing behind by approximately 13 percent.
“Warren is essentially tied with former Vice President Joe Biden,” the news release reads.
“Though well within the margin of error, this is the first time that a candidate other than Biden has had the numerical lead in the primary since Quinnipiac began asking the question in March.”
And these were not the only late-September bells tolling bad news for the former vice president’s campaign.
A poll released last week by the Des Moines Register, in cooperation with CNN and Mediacom Iowa, also had Biden displaced by Warren at the front of the still-sizable Democratic presidential primary pack.
According to Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy, however, that pack appears as though it may be on the verging of thinning out, with a vast majority of the candidates bleeding money and unable to gain enough traction to break 15 percent support.
“We now have a race with two candidates at the top of the field, and they’re leaving the rest of the pack behind,” Malloy said.
Elizabeth Warren surges and Joe Biden fades in close Iowa race, a new CNN/Des Moines Register poll of likely Iowa caucusgoers shows.
Warren: 22%
Biden: 20%
Sanders: 11%
Buttigieg: 9%
Harris: 6%https://t.co/2ShU0OZTlY— CNN (@CNN) September 22, 2019
Since the starting gun rang out on the 2020 Democratic primary this past spring, political commentators have made it a point to warn that Biden’s early surge to the top of the polls in a lengthy election cycle may have been more of a stumbling block than anything, leaving the candidate with too much time to falter.
Several outlets and pundits on either side of the aisle have even gone so far as to frame the race as “Biden’s to lose.”
Now, after weeks of gaffe after gaffe after gaffe — and the House Democrat’s Ukraine whistleblower inquiry catching Biden in the crossfire for potentially corrupt foreign policy wrongdoings of his own — the polls seem to be reflecting the truth of that narrative.
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