Biden leading in Florida poll
A Florida poll shows Joe Biden, center, far ahead of Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders among Sunshine State Democrats. The former vice president has the support of 42% of primary voters in a poll released by Florida Atlantic University. That puts Biden 26 points ahead of the second-place candidate, Sanders of Vermont, who has 16%. Sanders’ support has remained remarkably steady.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is gaining support in Florida, where he’s now far ahead of all the other candidates for his party’s nomination.
The former vice president has the support of 42% of primary voters in a poll released Wednesday by Florida Atlantic University.
That puts Biden 26 points ahead of the secondplace candidate, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who has 16%. Sanders’ support has remained remarkably steady. It was 14% in FAU’s September poll and 12% in May.
Biden has gained significantly since FAU’s last Florida poll in September, when he had 34%. In the previous Florida poll Biden was just 10 points ahead of the second-place candidate.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts is at 10% in the January poll, which is less than half of the 24% she had in FAU’s last poll in September. Warren’s decline in Florida is similar to what’s happened nationally, where she experienced a big rise and then a big decline.
One of the notable findings in the poll: Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg had the support of 7% of Florida Democrats. He entered the race late last year after the other candidates had been campaigning for most of 2019. The billionaire former mayor has spent heavily on TV advertising.
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota has 6%, up from 0% in September.
Entrepreneur Andrew Yang had 5%, up from 2% in September.
Pete Buttigieg, former mayor of South Bend, Ind., had just 3%, down from 5% in September.
Biden’s overall standing in Florida is better than the 27% he holds in the Real Clear Politics average of five national polls of Democratic
primary voters conducted in January. Warren averages 19% nationally and Sanders has 16%.
In Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states with nominating contests, Biden, Buttigieg, Sanders and Warren are more tightly bunched, and any of the four are seen as potential winners.
Kevin Wagner, an FAU political scientist and research fellow at the university’s Business and Economics Polling Initiative, cautioned against making too many assumptions based on the Florida poll.
There’s been almost no campaigning in Florida, where the candidates usually visit to raise money. And 46% of Democratic primary voters said they could change their minds and vote for someone else in the Florida Democratic primary. “That suggests that the race is far more fluid than it would appear by Biden’s lead,” Wagner said.
The other 54% said they would definitely vote for their top choice, although it’s almost certain that additional candidates will drop out before Florida’s primary on March 17.
Trump vs. Democrats
One finding Sanders supporters will like is in a hypothetical head-to-head November matchup with President Donald Trump.
Sanders fared better against Trump among Florida
voters — 53% to 47% — than the other Democratic candidates.
The other matchups:
■ Biden, 51%; Trump, 49%.
■ Warren, 51%; Trump, 49%.
■ Buttigieg, 50%; Trump,
50%.
In the September FAU poll, Trump had slight leads in all the head-to-head matchups.
The general election in Florida is significant because the state’s 29 electoral votes — more than a tenth of the 270 needed to win — are essential to the president’s hopes for re-election.
In 2016, Trump won the state with 49 percent of the vote, 1.2 percentage points ahead of Democrat Hillary Clinton.
One big caveat about the results: All are within the poll’s margin of error, which is plus or minus 3 percentage points. In the TrumpSanders match-up for example, that could mean the actual split is 50% of reach.
The Florida results come from an FAU Business and Economics Polling Initiative survey of 1,285 registered voters conducted online and through automated calls to people with landline telephones from Thursday through Sunday. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The Democratic part of the poll had 476 respondents, so the margin of error is higher, at plus or minus 4 percentage points.