Former Vice President Joe Biden is heading into Michigan’s Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday with a 24-point lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), according to a new poll.
Biden has 51 percent support in Michigan, according to the Detroit Free Press survey released on Monday, compared to 27 percent for Sanders.
Biden’s lead in Michigan follows his big wins in South Carolina and other Super Tuesday states.
“Something happened on Super Tuesday with [other] candidates getting out and people are all of a sudden questioning Bernie’s positions on issues,” Bernie Porn, pollster for Lansing-based EPIC-MRA, which conducted the survey of 400 likely Democratic primary voters between Wednesday and Friday, told the Free Press. “If anything, it may be low in terms of the percentage that Biden may get.”
The new poll has a margin of error of 4.9 percentage points.
In 2016, a similar poll showed Sanders trailing Hillary Clinton by 25 points just days before the Michigan primary, which the Vermont senator won by a narrow margin. Young Michigan voters boosted Sanders in 2016, accounting for nearly 20 percent of the electorate and overwhelmingly voting for the progressive senator, the Free Press noted, citing exit polls.
Sanders still leads among voters between the ages of 18 and 34, at 58 percent support compared to Biden’s 17 percent, based on the new survey. An additional 19 percent of young voters are undecided.
Biden is heading into Tuesday’s races, held in five states in addition to Michigan, with a lead in delegates. Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and Washington will also hold primary elections on Tuesday.
Sanders on Sunday predicted that he would win the Michigan presidential primary, adding that he would not withdraw from the 2020 race if he lost in the Great Lakes State.