Bernie Sanders’s and Elizabeth Warren’s neighborhood advantages in New Hampshire have eroded as Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden climb in popularity, according to a new poll.
Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and Biden, the former vice president, are jostling to become the most preferred 2020 Democrat in the first-in-the-nation primary state on Feb. 11, with 18% and 17% support apiece, a WBUR survey released Wednesday found. Meanwhile, Sanders and Warren, senators who hail from the next-door states of Vermont and Massachusetts, respectively, round out the top-tier presidential candidates, with 15% and 12% of the vote.
Although the research shows more centrist contenders are ascendant in New Hampshire, it also demonstrates volatility in the Democratic contest for the White House, as 12% of respondents are still undecided ahead of the primary set for Feb. 11.
“What’s remarkable about this is how close it remains,” said the MassINC Polling Group’s Steve Koczela, president of the firm that put the survey in the field. “We’ve got three candidates, all within three points of each other — and Elizabeth Warren not that far behind, right there in that top tier. Basically, [this is] a race that could go in any direction.”
While presidential contenders from states sharing a border with New Hampshire traditionally do well given their higher name recognition and media market overlap, Sanders and Warren are slipping in support, according to the WBUR poll. Warren’s decline follows growing scrutiny of her candidacy, particularly over the 70-year-old’s plan to pay for “Medicare for all” and clashes with Buttigieg, 37, with whom she is competing for educated voters over transparency regarding their work in the private sector for corporate clients.
The survey boosts Buttigieg’s credentials in the less racially diverse early-nominating states of Iowa and New Hampshire, though he is still struggling to appeal to black voters in South Carolina. It also spells good news for Biden, 77, whose campaign has repeatedly foreshadowed the likelihood he will get trounced in the first two contests before rallying thanks to his South Carolina “fire wall,” bolstered by his popularly among black voters in the “First in the South” state.
Pollsters questioned 442 likely New Hampshire Democratic primary voters from Dec. 3 to Dec. 8 for the WBUR survey. The research’s findings have a margin of error of plus or minus 4.7 percentage points.
[Read more: Bernie’s back: Sanders now a top-tier challenger to Biden]
