A new poll out of Iowa has Pete Buttigieg surging to third place among announced and potential Democratic candidates.
The Emerson poll has former Vice President Joe Biden leading the pack with 25 percent, followed closely by Sen. Bernie Sanders at 24 percent. The big surprise, though, is Buttigieg who came in 11 percent. Buttigieg announced he was running in January, that same poll clocked him at 0 percent among Iowa voters at the time.
Since then, Buttigieg, 37, has begun to make a name for himself in the crowded primary field. Buttigieg, who has been the mayor of South Bend, Ind., since 2012, served in Afghanistan and, if elected, would be the first openly gay and the youngest president in history.
At a CNN town hall this month, Buttigieg called fellow Hoosier, Vice President Mike Pence, the “cheerleader of the porn star presidency.” The following day his campaign raked in $600,000 from more than 22,000 donors. Less than a week later he passed the 65,000-donor threshold to participate in the first Democratic primary debate, a benchmark that others like former Rep. John Delaney, who was the first to announce his candidacy, have failed to reach.
“The biggest surprise in this poll is Mayor Pete, last week we saw him inching up in our national poll, and now he’s in double digits in Iowa,” Spencer Kimball, director of the Emerson Poll said. The poll of 707 registered voters was conducted March 21-24 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.
Despite Buttigieg’s surge, Biden and Sanders continue to dominate in the state and have been neck-and-neck in polls there recently. Biden has yet to announce he is running for president, although it appears more likely by the day.
Following Buttigieg in the survey are Democratic Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, polling at 10 percent and 9 percent, respectively.
The trend of Biden and Sanders leading extends nationally, where a recent poll of Democratic primary voters placed Biden at 31 percent and Sanders at 23 percent.
The Iowa caucus will he held on Feb. 3, 2020, and is seen as an early litmus test for candidates vying for the Democratic nomination.
