Warren leads in tight Iowa race as Biden fades

The top Democratic presidential candidates are locked in a close race in the 2020 Iowa caucuses, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren slightly ahead of Sen. Bernie Sanders, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, and former Vice President Joe Biden, according to a New York Times/ Siena College poll of likely Democratic caucusgoers.

Warren appears to have solidified her gains in the first voting state while Buttigieg has climbed quickly to catch up with Sanders and overtake Biden, the onetime front-runner. Warren is drawing support from 22% of likely caucusgoers, while Sanders is at 19%, followed by Buttigieg at 18% and Biden at 17%.

The survey is full of alarming signs for Biden, who entered the race in April at the top of the polls in Iowa and nationally. He is still in the lead in most national polls, but his comparatively weak position in the earliest primary and caucus states presents a serious threat to his candidacy. And Biden’s unsteadiness appears to have opened a path in the race for other Democrats closer to the political middle.

The poll reveals a race in flux but not in disarray, framed by a stark debate about the direction of the Democratic Party and by a degree of fluidity arising from Biden’s travails. In the early states, at least, the former vice president appears to be buckling on one side to the expansive populism of Warren and Sanders, and on the other to Buttigieg’s calls for generational change.

While no single candidate has a decisive advantage, the strongest currents in the party appear to be swirling around candidates promising in different ways to challenge the existing political and economic order.