Poll: Biden holds double-digit lead over 2020 Democratic rivals

Former Vice President Joe Biden leads the field of Democratic presidential hopefuls by double digits a month ahead of the Iowa caucuses, according to a Harvard CAPS/Harris poll released exclusively to The Hill.

The poll shows Biden registering 30 percent support among Democrats nationally. In a relatively distant second place is Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who notched 17 percent in the survey. 

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is lingering in the No. 3 spot with 12 percent support. No other candidate registered double-digit support. Former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg came in fourth place at 7 percent, while former tech executive Andrew Yang notched 3 percent support.

“Biden continues to be the front-runner but the surprise is really the growth of Sanders while Warren has shrunk,” said Mark Penn, the co-director of the Harvard CAPS/Harris poll. “Just a few months ago this was a Warren race — today it’s more likely to come down to Biden vs. Sanders.” 

The poll shows little change from a previous Harvard CAPS/Harris survey conducted in late November that put Biden at 29 percent, Sanders at 16 percent, Warren at 13 percent and Buttigieg at 8 percent, suggesting that the state of the race may be steadying even before the first votes are cast next month.

Still, recent polls in early primary and caucus states show a more fluid race. 

An Emerson College survey of likely Iowa Democratic caucusgoers released last month showed Biden and Sanders in a statistical tie for first place, with 23 percent and 22 percent support, respectively.

And a WBUR-MassINC poll of New Hampshire Democrats from December showed Buttigieg and Biden knotted at the top with 18 percent and 17 percent, respectively. Sanders wasn’t far behind in that survey, with 15 percent support.

The Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll survey was conducted online within the U.S. among a representative sample of 780 registered Democratic voters between Dec. 27-29 by the Harris Poll. 

Results were weighted for age within gender, region, race/ethnicity, marital status, household size, income, employment, education, political party, and political ideology where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online.