Former Vice President Joe Biden holds a 5-point lead over Sen. Elizabeth Warren among the state’s Democratic voters seven months before the 2020 presidential primary, according to a Siena College poll.
The poll finds Biden (22%), Warren (17%) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (15%) have emerged as the front-runners among New York Democrats.
The three have opened a wide early lead in New York over Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., who had the support of 4%, and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., who is favored by 3%, the poll found. No other Democratic candidate topped 1%.
The poll, the first by Siena College to ask Democratic voters who they support for the party’s nomination in 2020, closely mirrors national polls that show Biden as the Democratic front-runner.
Biden, a graduate of Syracuse University’s College of Law, holds a narrower lead in New York than in national polls. A Morning Consult nationwide poll released Monday showed Biden (32%) has a 12-point lead over Sanders (20%), while Warren is favored by 18% of Democratic voters.
Siena College pollster Steve Greenberg cautioned against reading too much into the New York poll. He noted that more than one-third of the state’s Democrats are still undecided about who they will support in the state’s April 28 presidential primary.
The Siena poll found Biden is the front-runner across most categories of Democratic voters in the state. He leads in New York City and Upstate New York, among men and women, with white and black voters, and with voters older than age 35.
Warren, a Massachusetts senator, is the front-runner in New York City’s suburbs and among Latino voters, according to the poll.
Sanders, the 78-year-old independent senator from Vermont, is the favored candidate among New York Democrats under age 35.
When asked which Democrat has the best chance to win the presidential race in 2020, Biden (37%) was the clear choice over Warren (13%) and Sanders (11%).
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s approval rating in his home state fell to its lowest level since January. Trump is viewed unfavorably by 64% of New York voters, and favorably by 32%, the poll found.
Trump’s job performance rating in New York is even worse. Nearly three-quarters of New Yorkers give him negative reviews, the president’s worst rating this year.
The poll of 798 registered New York voters was conducted Sept. 8-12 by calls to landlines and cell phones. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
