Sanders opens up 18-point lead in California primary

Biden and Warren plummet, new poll finds

With two weeks to go before election day, Bernie Sanders has blown open an 18-point lead in California’s Democratic presidential primary, a new poll released Tuesday found, distancing himself from a pack of more moderate rivals in a growing ideological battle for the heart of the party.

The poll, conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California over the last week and a half, found Sanders leading with 32 percent among likely voters in the Democratic primary.

None of his rivals managed even half of that level of support, and the next four candidates are in a statistical tie for second. The poll put former Vice President Joe Biden at 14 percent, Sen. Elizabeth Warren at 13 percent and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 12 percent.

Trailing behind the pack, Sen. Amy Klobuchar was at 5 percent, former San Francisco hedge fund chief Tom Steyer at 3 percent and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard at 1 percent, the poll found.

“Sanders is really benefiting from the fact that the moderates are so divided,” said Mark Baldassare, the poll’s director. “None of the moderate candidates are standing out, but they’re each holding on to their own groups of supporters.”

Only Sanders was above the 15 percent threshold for candidates to receive any of California’s 144 pledged statewide delegates — although other contenders who reach that level in individual congressional districts would still get some of the state’s 272 delegates that are divided by district.

The PPIC poll is the first major snapshot of the California race in the wake of the first two primary contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, in which Sanders and Buttigieg came in first and second while Warren and Biden fell behind — although the poll was already in the field when New Hampshire voted.

Sanders’ lead jumped from 3 percentage points in the organization’s January poll to 18 points this month. Bloomberg and Buttigieg, however, had the largest leaps over their past showings — Buttigieg was at 6 percent last month, while Bloomberg was at less than 1 percent, although he was not included in the January poll’s questionnaire. Meanwhile, Biden and Warren have dropped significantly after getting 24 and 23 percent, respectively, in last month’s poll.

“Once a candidate starts to develop a sizable lead in delegates, it’s very hard to catch up,” Jack Pitney, a politics professor at Claremont McKenna College, said of Sanders’ growing lead. “Only Bloomberg would have the resources to engage in the trench warfare of delegate arithmetic against Sanders.”

Bloomberg’s jump comes as the billionaire former mayor has blanketed the state’s airwaves with TV ads promoting his campaign, and his poll numbers are rising in other national and state polls.

But Sanders’ support among key constituents is soaring: The poll found the Vermont senator is favored by 53 percent of Latino likely voters, as well as 53 percent of likely voters younger than 45. And 34 percent of respondents say they think he has the best chance of the Democratic candidates of defeating President Trump — even though Sanders’ Democratic rivals have argued he’s too liberal to win the Midwestern swing states that the party likely will need to win the general election.

Californians will vote March 3 — Super Tuesday — in the presidential primary, which will determine the breakup of the state’s massive trove of 416 pledged delegates.

But with more California voters expected to cast their ballots by mail than ever before, time is running out for rivals to catch Sanders. More than a million Golden State voters have already returned their ballots, according to a tally by Political Data Inc., a prominent state political firm.

Six candidates — Sanders, Biden, Warren, Buttigieg, Bloomberg and Klobuchar — are set to face off in Wednesday’s debate in Las Vegas, which starts at 6 p.m. Pacific time on NBC and MSNBC. It will be their final matchup before the Nevada caucuses on Feb. 21 and the first debate stage appearance for Bloomberg, who’s likely to be the target of plenty of attacks.

The poll, which surveyed 573 likely Democratic primary voters on landlines and cell phones and in English and Spanish between Feb. 7-17, had a margin of error of plus and minus 5.7 percentage points.