The leading Democrat in the race for the 2020 presidential election is slumping in the polls. Support for Joe Biden has slipped below 20 percent, a massive slide from his lead at 32 percent just a few months ago.
According to CNN , Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Joe Biden all have about 20 percent support from voters in a recent Monmouth University poll, with Biden trailing at 19 percent to Warren and Sanders’ 20 percent. The newest numbers are a dramatic shift from earlier polls, which have shown the former vice president with a comfortable lead over his progressive competitors.
Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, weighed in on the results.
“The main takeaway from this poll is that the Democratic race has become volatile. Liberal voters are starting to cast about for a candidate they can identify with,” said Murray.
It seems that people who haven’t been paying close attention to the race are unsure about the former vice president. He has lost support across the board among white Democrats, voters of color, voters without a college degree, voters with a college degree, and voters under the age of 55-years-old.
“Moderate voters, who have been paying less attention, seem to be expressing doubts about Biden. But they are swinging more toward one of the left-leaning contenders with high name recognition rather than toward a lesser-known candidate who might be more in line with them politically,” Murray said.
Since June, Biden has been struggling to engage potential voters.
“Compared to Monmouth’s June poll, these results represent an increase in support for both Sanders (up from 14%) and Warren (up from 15%), and a significant drop for Biden (down from 32%),” the poll reported.
White Democrats alone have dropped in support from 32 percent to 18 percent since Monmouth’s recent poll in June. The support that Biden had has shifted equally to Sanders and Warren.
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Murray says that one poll is just a “snapshot” of how voters are feeling right now and shouldn’t be taken as an indication of how the election will turn out. But, he says, it’s a warning sign of how things are shifting now that more people are paying attention to the election, which is just over a year away.
Senator Kamala Harris came in at a distant 4th place with 8 percent of support, unchanged from June’s survey. South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Senator Cory Booker, from New Jersey, came in 5th place, indicating that the race for president in 2020 has narrowed down to just three candidates.
