Sanders Has Narrow Lead in New National Poll

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January 23, 2020 1:04 AM

A new national poll shows Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont with a lead in a national debate qualifying poll for the first time in the 2020 Democratic primary, while a second national survey conducted by a different pollster shows former Vice President Joe Biden in front.

Sanders Has Narrow Lead in New National Poll

The first poll, conducted by SSRS for CNN and released Wednesday morning, showed Sanders with 27% support and Biden following closely behind at 24% support. It was the first time Sanders has led nationally since Biden entered the race last April, though his lead was within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

The second poll, released later Wednesday by Monmouth University, showed a different picture at the top, with Biden in the lead with 30% support and Sanders in second with 23%.

In both polls, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts finished third with 14% support.

Former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, and former Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York traded places in the polls, with Buttigieg coming in fourth in CNN’s poll with 11% and fifth in Monmouth’s with 6%, and Bloomberg finishing fourth in Monmouth’s with 9% and fifth in CNN’s with 5%.

No other candidate garnered more than 5% support in either of the polls.

The surveys add detail to the portrait of how the race is unfolding nationally. A national survey released last week by Quinnipiac University showed Biden in the lead with 25% support and Sanders in second with 19%.

Biden has for months maintained steady support atop national surveys. The only time Sanders has led Biden in a high-quality national poll that the Democratic National Committee has sanctioned for debate qualifications was in August, when he and Warren each garnered 20% support to Biden’s 19%. Warren led several national polls in the fall.

The polls have shown a different picture in Iowa, where a tight four-way race is underway between Biden, Sanders, Warren and Buttigieg.

But Sanders has shown particular signs of strength in some early-state polls, leading a highly anticipated poll of Iowa caucusgoers conducted by The Des Moines Register/CNN and a CBS/YouGov tracking poll of New Hampshire primary voters, both released this month. He also led a Suffolk University poll of New Hampshire voters released Tuesday that will not count toward debate qualification.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .

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