Polls: Biden maintains lead in multiple primary states after debate

Former Vice President Joe Biden continues to hold a lead in polls of several primary states following the second round of Democratic presidential debates last week.

Surveys released this week by SurveyUSA and Franklin & Marshall College showed Biden with a lead in Pennsylvania, California and North Carolina over other top-tier contenders.

{mosads}Biden led the field with 36 percent support in North Carolina and 25 percent in California, according to the SurveyUSA poll, while he had 28 percent in Pennsylvania, according to the Franklin & Marshall College survey.

{mosads}The SurveyUSA polls found Biden with more than double the support of his closest challenger in North Carolina — 36 percent to Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) 15 percent — while the Franklin & Marshall College survey found him leading Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) by 9 points, 28 to 21 percent, in Pennsylvania.

In California, where nearly 500 delegates are up for grabs, Biden leads the field with 25 percent support among voters, while Warren comes in second with 21 percent and Sanders follows with 18 percent.

Biden has held the position of front-runner for the nomination since declaring his candidacy earlier this year, though the former vice president saw his support erode in some states following the first Democratic debates in June when he clashed with Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.).

Another poll of New Hampshire voters released this week found Biden with a narrower 4-point lead over Sanders, 21 to 17 percent, while Biden led former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) by 9 points, 28 to 19 percent, in a poll of Texas voters. 

The SurveyUSA polls were conducted Aug. 1–5 among 2,113 likely Democratic voters in North Carolina and 528 likely Democratic voters in California; information about the polls’ margins of error were not immediately available.

The Franklin & Marshall College survey was conducted from July 29 to Aug. 4 among 627 registered voters in Pennsylvania and has a margin of error of 6 percentage points.