Pete Buttigieg surged into third place while Joe Biden dropped 6 points in a Suffolk University/USA Today Iowa poll conducted after the October Democratic presidential primary debate.
The 37-year-old South Bend, Indiana mayor captured 13% support in the survey, up 7 points from a June Suffolk/USA Today poll, putting him in third place behind Biden’s 18% and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s 17%. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders came in fourth place with 9% support, unchanged since June.
Biden’s support dropped 6 points from the June poll when he captured 24%. About 1 in 4 polls respondents thought that Biden’s debate performance last week was worse than expected, and those who did not say that Biden, 76, was their first or second choice most frequently cited his old age.
[Read: Buttigieg pushing to supplant Biden as centrist alternative to Warren]
“Iowa is unquestionably up for grabs,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk Political Research Center. Buttigieg “has found a lane and is accelerating toward the front of the pack, surpassing Bernie Sanders. All of this is happening while the number of undecided voters continues to grow as Democratic caucusgoers pause to reevaluate the changing field.”
The poll counts toward the Democratic National Committee’s qualifying polls for the November Democratic presidential debate, which requires candidates to have 3% support in at least four approved polls or 5% support in two early state polls. Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who have not yet qualified for the November round, each got 3% support in the Suffolk/USA Today poll, Gabbard’s first qualifying poll and Klobuchar’s second.
The poll was conducted among 500 likely Iowa Democratic Caucus voters from Oct. 16-18 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4%.
