A new poll by Morning Consult shows former Vice President Joe Biden leads the field for the Democratic presidential nomination, keeping his double-digit advantage over Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., despite several women alleging Biden violated their personal space and touched them without consent.
The survey interviewed two separate sets of voters: one group representative of the nationwide Democratic primary electorate, and a second set in early voting states. The nationwide poll showed Biden, who has yet to formally announce a presidential bid, maintaining a 10 percentage point lead over Sanders. Meanwhile, Biden widened his lead in early voting primary states to 14 percentage points against second-place Sanders.
Both results keep the remaining candidates in single digits, distant from Biden and Sanders.
When voters were asked for their second choice in the event their first choice drops out of the race, Biden gained support from the majority of Sanders, California Sen. Kamala Harris, and former New York Rep. Beto O’Rourke supporters. Sanders gained support from the majority of Biden and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren voters.
Both Biden and Sanders received similar name recognition and favorable numbers, with voters responding “heard of and have favorable opinion” 75% for Biden and 74% for Sanders. Businessman Andrew Yang and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee had the worst name recognition in the field with 13% and 14%, respectively.
South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg had the best unfavorable rating with only 7% of the voters saying they view him negatively, compared to Sanders and Warren, the most unfavorable candidates with 17% and 18%, respectively. For Biden, 15% of voters said they have an unfavorable view of him.
The nationwide poll is reportedly using 12,940 interviews with likely Democratic primary, registered voters from April 1-7. Individuals who stated they had not made their choice yet were asked to pick a candidate they are leaning toward. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point.
The “Early Primary State” poll interviewed 525 voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, or Nevada, in the same time frame and under the same parameters as the nationwide poll. That poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
A South Carolina poll by Change Research released this week showed Biden up 18 percentage points over Sanders in the Palmetto State.
