A new national poll out today from Morning Consult shows Vermont senator Bernie Sanders with a commanding lead on former vice president Joe Biden, ahead 29 percent to 19 percent among Democratic-primary voters. The survey was conducted yesterday, two days after the New Hampshire primary, which Sanders won by a narrow margin over former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg.
Respondents were asked which candidate they would support if the primary or caucus were held in their state today. Before voting in New Hampshire, the most recent Morning Consult data showed Sanders leading Biden by just three points. Now, he’s ahead by ten points, and Biden is trailed closely by a third-place Michael Bloomberg, who receives 18-percent support.
Perhaps more interesting, the same poll found that voters’ confidence in Biden’s electability when facing President Donald Trump had plummeted since the New Hampshire primary. After his defeat in the Iowa caucuses, but before voting in New Hampshire, 29 percent of Democratic-primary voters thought Biden had the best chance of beating Trump. Since New Hampshire, that dropped twelve points to just 17 percent. Confidence in Sanders’s electability, meanwhile, had risen six points, to 29 percent.
These numbers are not an encouraging sign for Biden, who finished in a distant fourth place in Iowa last week and an abysmal fifth place in New Hampshire on Monday.
