Despite Sensationalistic Headlines Elsewhere, Biden Still Dominates Field

WEEKLY SNAPSHOT

With five new national polls out this week -- from CNN/SRSS, Morning Consult, HarrisX, YouGov, and Ipsos -- along with four new state polls -- Iowa, North Carolina, and two from Texas -- the race for the Democratic nomination remains quite consistent. 

Which may be a bit of a surprise for those who woke up to headlines on various political news sites and blogs over-sensationalizing the most recent Iowa poll. We'll get to that in more detail below, but first let's review where the race currently stands.

Joe Biden maintains his comfortable lead, dropping less than a point to end the week with a 33.4% average, well ahead of Bernie Sanders (17%, down .9% from last week) and even further ahead of Elizabeth Warren (9%, down .5%). Rounding out the top five are Kamala Harris (7.4%, down .4%) and Pete Buttigieg (6.8%, up .6%).

NEW NATIONAL POLLS 

We have five new national polls since our last update:

Ipsos, in a poll of registered voters, has Biden at 31, followed by Sanders at 14, Warren at 9, Harris at 6, and Buttigieg at 5. Everyone else is at 3% or lower. 

YouGov, in a poll of registered voters, has Biden at 27, followed by Sanders at 15, Warren at 12, Buttigieg at 10, and Harris at 9. Everyone else is at 2% or lower. 

HarrisX, in a poll of registered voters, has Biden at 35, followed by Sanders at 16, Buttigieg at 8, Warren at 5, and Harris tied with O'Rourke at 4. Everyone else is at 3% or lower.

Morning Consult, in their very large tracking poll of likely voters, has Biden at 38, followed by Sanders at 19, Warren at 10, Buttigieg and Harris at 7, and O'Rourke at 4. Everyone else is at 3% or lower.

CNN/SSRS, in a poll of registered voters, has Biden at 32, followed by Sanders at 18, Harris at 8, Warren at 7, and Buttigieg and O'Rourke tired at 5. Everyone else is at 3% or lower.

UPDATED NATIONAL RANKINGS

The Top Five

• Biden -- 33.4 %
• Sanders -- 17 %
• Warren -- 9 %
• Harris -- 7.4 %
• Buttigieg -- 6.8 %
  

The Middle of The Pack

• O'Rourke -- 3.9 %
• Booker -- 2.3 %

Still In The Race

• Klobucher -- 1.3 %
• Yang -- 1.1 %
• Castro -- 0.8 %
• Ryan -- 0.8 %
• Gabbard -- 0.7 %
• Hickenlooper -- 0.6 %
• Gillibrand -- 0.5 % 
• De Blasio -- 0.5 %

Outside The Polling

All of the other announced candidates were below 0.5% or did not show in the national polling from this past week.

Here's the full graph of all ranked candidates over the past ten national polls:

NEW STATE POLLS

We have a number of new polls this week, including two from Texas, our first from North Carolina, and an Iowa poll that has the media in a tizzy but is actually good news for Joe Biden (in spite of the headlines). 

So let's start with the Iowa Poll, which comes from the Des Moines Register (in partnership with CNN). Biden leads the pack with 24, followed by Sanders at 16, Warren at 15, Buttigieg at 14, and Harris at 7 (with the usual rest of the pack at 2% or lower). The media is focusing on the lower-than-average polling number for Biden based on his national numbers, and the higher-than-average numbers for Warren and Buttigieg. Which, taken on the surface, makes for a good story.

However... let's look at the three most recent polls from Iowa to get a bit of perspective:

IOWA	05/02/19	05/20/19	06/09/19		AVERAGE
Biden	35	24	24		27.7
Sanders	14	24	16		18
Buttigieg	11	14	14		13
Warren	10	12	15		12.3
Harris	5	10	7		7.3
O'Rourke	3	5	2		3

As you can see, Biden's support stayed the same from the previous poll, and both Warren and Buttigieg are basically on par with the recent polling. Granted, Biden went from 35 last month to 24 this month, which is a noticeable drop, but he's still well ahead of everyone else. But the bigger news that is getting overlooked is the drop back in support for Sanders after a mid-May spike. Why the various political sites and blogs aren't leading with that headline is interesting, to say the least. 

We also have our first poll from North Carolina, which will be a major target for whoever ends up winning the Democratic nomination. In a poll of likely voters by Emerson College, Biden is ahead at 39, followed by Sanders at 22, Warren at 15, Buttigieg at 8, and Harris at 5. Everyone else is at 3% or lower. For some historical perspective, in 2016, Hillary Clinton got 54.5% of the vote in NC"s Democratic primary, while Bernie Sanders got 40.9%.

Also this week comes not one but two polls from Texas, which has been the centerpiece for Bet O'Rourke's strategy. Alas, his hope-for dominance is starting to fade in the Lone Star state. While he does maintain a 27-24 lead over Biden in the Change Research poll of likely voters (with Sanders at 13), the more recent poll of registered voters by Quinnipiac University has Biden ahead 30-16 over O'Rourke with Sanders just behind at 15. 

The average of the three most recent polls from Texas can not be encouraging for O'Rourke and his campaign:

TEXAS	04/28/19	06/04/19	06/05/19		AVERAGE
Biden	23	24	30		25.7
O'Rourke	22	27	16		21.7
Sanders	17	13	15		15
Warren	7	12	11		10
Buttigieg	8	8	3		6.3
Harris	3	8	4		5
Castro	4	2	4		3.3

THE DEBATES

The first debates of the season are coming up three weeks, and even though the Democratic National Committee bent over backwards to make it as easy as possible to qualify for one of the twenty (!!) spots in the two-day debate. candidates who just missed the cut are already venting to the media:

"The DNC announced earlier this year that candidates will qualify for the first two Democratic debates -- one in June and one in July -- by achieving at least 1% support in three polls from an approved list of pollsters or receiving campaign contributions from 65,000 unique donors, including 200 donors each from 20 different states. The committee recently announced that they were doubling those thresholds for the third and fourth debates -- in September and October respectively -- requiring candidates to achieve both 2% in four polls from a slightly changed list of approved pollsters and 130,000 unique donors from the date of their campaign's creation."

The tightening of the requirements for the later debates is a clear attempt by the DNC to keep a repeat of 2016's GOP debates, which were widely seen as unwieldy and unsubstantive on discussing actual issues. 

If you want to dig a bit deeper, Newsweek has a pretty comprehensive page on the DNC Debates, including schedules, requirements, and who's qualified for the stage.