Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren gained ground on former Vice President Joe Biden after the second round of Democratic primary debates last week.
Quinnipiac University released polling results Tuesday showing Warren’s numbers rose on July 29 from 15% to 21%, while Biden saw a slight decrease from 34% to 32%.
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Warren is slowly breaking away from the rest of the pack. The next-closest candidate is Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders with 14% support. California Sen. Kamala Harris suffered a five-percentage-point drop to 7% in a week’s time and has all but lost the bump she received after confronting Biden about race issues in the first debate.
The pollsters credit Warren’s policy ideas, which leads the pack with 32% support among Democrats, as her enduring strength.
“Biden survives, Warren thrives and Harris dives as debate number two shakes up the primary,” Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, said in a press release.
“Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s policy heavy presentation and former Vice President Joseph Biden’s ability to handle the heat from all corners put them on top,” Malloy added.
Most of the survey-takers who identify as Democrats or Democratic-leaning voters either watched or paid attention to news from the presidential debate last week in Detroit. More than a quarter of those people — 28% — decided Warren did the “best job” of the 20 candidates who took the stage.
Warren and Sanders, standing next to each other on the first night of the CNN debates, fended off criticism of their far-left policy ideas by more centrist candidates. “We’re not going to solve the urgent problems that we face with small ideas and spinelessness,” Warren said of the more pragmatist approach.
She added later in the evening, “I don’t know why anybody runs for president of the United States talking about what we can’t do and what she shouldn’t fight for.”
Biden, who stumbled in his first debate performance in late June, was better prepared last week to respond to his rivals’ attacks on issues such as immigration, race, and crime, but the 76-year-old made headlines for repeatedly stumbling over numbers and phrases.
Of the poll-takers who watched or followed the debates, 15% said Biden did the best job while another 9% said he did the worst job, tied with self-help author Marianne Williamson.
Still, most of these survey-takers see Biden as having the best chance of beating President Trump in a general election contest. 49% said Biden has the best chance, while only 9% said the same of Warren. 12% said Sanders has the best shot.
The survey was conducted from Aug. 1-5 via landlines and cellphones among 807 Democrats and independent voters that lean Democratic, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
