Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) support dipped among college students following the fifth Democratic presidential debate this week, according to a Chegg-College Pulse weekly tracker.
The latest figures released Thursday showed Warren’s support dropped from 31 percent to 24 percent, marking a 7-point decrease from the Oct. 15 poll.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) now holds a double-digit lead over Warren, garnering 35 percent support among college students. That level marks a high for Sanders, who previously peaked at 34 percent in April.
The tracker, which began in March, also found that businessman Andrew Yang placed third with 11 percent support, with former Vice President Joe Biden trailing with 9 percent.
South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, meanwhile, followed with 8 percent.
The rest of the Democratic field, including Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), registered at 3 percent or less.
College Pulse CEO Terren Klein warned candidates on Monday not to overlook college students in the 2020 elections, insisting that the demographic could play a crucial role, including in battleground states like Pennsylvania.
“To overlook college students as an unimportant demographic in this upcoming election would be a mistake,” he told Hill.TV.
The voting rate among college students in the U.S. has more than doubled from 2014 to 2018, according to a study conducted by the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education at Tufts University. The study found that an estimated 7.5 million college students voted in the 2018 midterm elections.
The survey comes after 10 Democratic presidential contenders took part in Wednesday’s debate in Atlanta.
Chegg polled more than 1,500 college students nationwide from Nov 19-20 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The poll closed before Wednesday’s debate.
—Tess Bonn
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