HOUSTON — Michael Bloomberg has inched his way up in Texas polling to tie for second-place with Joe Biden, four days before Super Tuesday.
Biden, 77, and Bloomberg, 78, each earn 20% of the vote in a new Univision News and University of Houston poll released Friday. But the pair, who are competing to dominate the center-left lane of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, still trail the race’s front-runner, Bernie Sanders, who has 26% support.
After trouncing the field in Nevada, particularly among the state’s vibrant Latino community, Sanders, 78, is positioned to also do well in Texas. The Lone Star State, with its own dynamic Latino population, would help propel the socialist Vermont senator on his path toward the nomination, given 228 delegates are up for grabs on March 3, when 14 states weigh in on the process. In comparison, White House hopefuls squabbled over 36 delegates in Nevada.
Since September, when Univision News and the University of Houston last fielded the poll, the former mayor of Burlington, Vermont, has doubled his vote share on the backs of Texan sons, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke and ex-Obama Housing Secretary and San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro, ending their presidential campaigns.
Meanwhile, support for Biden, who was the state’s preferred candidate last fall, remained steady. Bloomberg didn’t announce his bid until November. However, in a blow to Biden, Bloomberg is more popular with Latinos surveyed, 23% to 19%. Yet Sanders leads the duo among Latinos with 26%.
Friday’s poll bolsters anecdotal evidence in Texas that Sanders is experiencing a groundswell behind his candidacy, despite being walloped in the state by 2016 Democratic rival Hillary Clinton by more than 30 percentage points. He averages 26%, ahead of Biden’s 20% and Bloomberg’s 18.7%, according to RealClearPolitics data.
