Colorado Dems split among Sanders, Biden and Warren, first state poll says
It’s a three-person race in Colorado for the Democratic presidential nomination, according to the first 2020 poll of the state’s voters, but four of the five current leading contenders would beat President Donald Trump.
Among the Democratic candidates, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who won Colorado’s 2016 caucus, leads with 26% support, according to the Emerson College poll released Tuesday. Former Vice President Joe Biden comes in a very close second with 25%, and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is third with 20%. The margin of error is 4.8%.
Colorado’s own U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet — who has suggested Sanders and his more progressive ideas couldn’t win in Colorado — received just 1% support in the poll.
Emerson College surveyed 403 likely Democratic primary voters by telephone and online between Friday and Monday.
In a broader survey of 1,000 registered voters, Sanders, Biden, Warren and Pete Buttigieg, the South Bend, Ind., mayor, would beat Trump by at least 7 percentage points. U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris leads by 3 points, which is within the poll’s margin of error.
The survey also found former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper leading U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, the Yuma Republican up for reelection, 53-40 in a hypothetical match. Hickenlooper, who dropped his bid for president last week, has yet to announce whether he’ll mount a Senate bid.
Emerson’s methodology was scrutinized on Twitter by Colorado pollster David Flaherty, who raised concern that the survey failed to call cellphones, missing a large sample of Colorado’s unaffiliated voters.
Flaherty said, however, that despite the shortcomings in the methodology, the top-line results were “convincing.”
Biden leads most national and state polls, with Sanders and Warren following. Emerson’s director of polling, Spencer Kimball, said the Colorado results mirror other national trends, though.
“The Colorado data is similar to other state and national polls where Sanders holds a base with the youth vote, Biden has his base with older voters and Warren holds equally strong across age groups,” Kimball said in a statement. “If either Sanders or Biden slip, Warren may be the beneficiary.”
Colorado will help decide who takes on Trump in an open primary — in which unaffiliated voters may participate along with Democrats — March 3. Next year will be the first time in 20 years that Colorado holds a presidential primary rather than a caucus. Emerson noted that the switch could drastically alter the makeup of who votes.
For example, among new voters who plan to participate in the primary, Harris received the highest amount of support with 21%, followed by Sanders at 20%, Warren at 17% and Biden at 16%.