Former Vice President Joe Biden has a sizeable advantage in the 2020 Democratic primary, according to the latest Morning Consult poll released Tuesday.
Two candidates completely dominated the poll above all others. Biden managed the lead with 31 percent of the vote, which is two percentage points higher than his standing last week, despite the fact that he has yet to actually enter the race. An additional 27 percent of respondents supported Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders.
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) stands on the statehouse steps during the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day at the Dome event on January 21, 2019 in Columbia, South Carolina. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
The two frontrunners enjoyed the vast majority of the support. California Sen. Kamala Harris brought up a distant third, only managing 11 percent of the vote; Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren earned 7 percent of the vote; former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke earned 6 percent; New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker earned 4 percent; and Minnesota Sen. Klobuchar tied with an “other” option out of the 12 names that were given for 3 percent of the vote.
The remaining candidates were tied at 1 percent or less.
Morning Consult conducted the online survey from Feb. 25, 2019, to March 3, 2019. There were 12,560 respondents in the Democratic primary poll, and the stated margin of error was plus or minus one percentage point. (RELATED: Joe Biden Calls Mike Pence ‘A Decent Guy’ Then Backtracks)
The poll comes on the same day that a six-person focus group unanimously demolished the idea of a potential Biden run in 2020.
“I will be honest. . . . Obviously, I rode the Obama wave, and I thought he was a person that would unite the party, but to be honest, you know, Sen. Biden really comes from kind of the good-old-boy politics of the past,” another voter argued. “I don’t think Joe Biden represents that new thing that we need. We need a new economy, we need a new politics and we need someone different.”