Poll: Biden holds his lead nationally

Former Vice President Joe Biden is holding his lead in the crowded Democratic presidential primary roughly two months out from the first nominating contests, according to a new national survey from Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll released exclusively to The Hill. 

Twenty-nine percent of respondents said they would most likely vote for Biden in a Democratic primary, while 16 percent said they would back Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). 

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) rounded out the top three slots at 13 percent support. 

“The data shows Joe Biden has a strong base of loyal Democrats that basically has neither grown nor shrunk in the last 6 months despite everyone’s efforts,” said Mark Penn, the co-director of the Harvard CAPS/Harris poll. “He remains the front-runner after Elizabeth Warren faltered with her ‘Medicare for All’ plan.”

Meanwhile, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg garnered 8 percent support, while former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg came in at 7 percent support. 

Bloomberg gained traction quickly after formally entering the race last month, focusing his time and resources on Super Tuesday states.

A Morning Consult survey released on Tuesday also showed Biden leading the pack at 29 percent support nationally, again followed by Sanders, Warren and Buttigieg, in that order.

The Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll survey was conducted online within the U.S. among a representative sample of 1,859 registered voters between Nov. 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.

The sampling margin of error of this poll is plus or minus 2 percentage points.