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The top three Democratic candidates for president in 2020 are lengthening their leads over their 10 rivals in the Real Clear Politics polling average, but former vice president Joe Biden maintains his comfortable lead over Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
RCP has Biden about 13 points ahead of Sanders and Warren, and 21.4 points or better ahead of the rest of the pack, not one of whom is polling, on average, above eight percent.
His lead in state polls is anywhere from under two points to more than 20.
The message for his revivals remains this: Consistent polling shows that voters aren’t much interested in venturing into the fever swamps of the radical Left, where most all the candidates would take the party.
National Numbers
Biden’s average RCP number is 28.8, with Sanders at 16.0 and Warren at 15.4. Senator Kamala Harris is below eight points with 7.4. “Mayor Pete” Buttigieg is at five. Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke is at three points, and Cory Booker, the poster boy for anger management, is at 2.2.
The rest aren’t worth mentioning except to show just how abysmal their numbers are: Andrew Yang is at 1.8, Tulsi Gabbard and Julián Castro are at 1.4, Amy Klobuchar at 1.2, and Tom Steyer and Marianne Williamson at 0.8.
Biden’s largest lead in the last six polls came in the Hill/Harris X poll of August 9-10, where he posted a 15-point lead over Sanders, 31-16, and 21 points over Warren, who hacked and wheezed into third place with 10.
A CNN poll of August 15-18 gave Biden a 14-point lead over Sanders, 29-15, and a 15-point lead over Warren, 29-14.
Mid-month Fox and Politico/Morning Consult polls gave Biden 11-point leads.
Though media reports have breathlessly reported “surges” by Warren and Harris, Biden remains firmly in command.
State Numbers
Those numbers raise the question of how Biden fares in the states. His lead isn’t as strong across the state polls, but he leads nonetheless, particularly in more conservative states.
Biden’s biggest margin, 23.7 percent, is in South Carolina. He’s polling at 38 percent in the Palmetto state, against Sanders’ 14.3, Warren’s 12.7, and Harris’ 12.7.
In Nevada, another more Red state, Biden leads by 14.7 points: Biden at 30, Sanders and Warren at 15.3, and Harris at 8.7
In Texas, O’Rourke, who represented the Lone Star Republic’s 16th congressional district, is Biden’s closest challenger, which is unsurprising. Biden, at 27 points, leads O’Rourke by 10.2 points. Sanders and Warren come in third with 13.8, and Harris at 6.5
Biden leads comfortably in Iowa with 26. Warren comes in eight points behind at 18. Sanders is at 14 and Harris at 13.5.
From there, Biden’s lead diminishes significantly.
In leftist Massachusetts, he leads by 6.5 points over Sanders, 22.5-16. Somewhat surprisingly, Warren, who represents the Bay State in the Senate, is third, at 12. Buttigieg is polling at 9.5 and Harris at six.
Biden has a mere 2.3-point lead over Harris in California 23.3-21. Warren is at 18.7 and Sanders at 17.3
In New Hampshire, Biden leads by 1.7 with 21 points to Sanders’ 19.3, Warren’s 14.7, and Harris at nine points.
These state and national numbers don’t mean Biden will win. But they might show that the far-left message from Sanders, Warren, Harris, and the rest aren’t resonationg with rank-and-file voters, much as those candidates and their partisans in the media might like to think.
Moderate Democrats, as The New American has reported, are quite worried the party might reject a more centrist candidate such as Biden and head down the same road it traveled in 1972, when it nominated a candidate much less radical than 2020’s crop of candidates and took an historic beating.
Richard Nixon defeated George McGovern 49 states to one, 520 electoral votes to 17, with 60.7 percent of the popular vote.
Iowa and Nevada will stage caucuses on February 3 and 22. South Carolina’s and New Hampshire’s primaries are February 11 and 29.
Texas, Massachusetts, and California will stage primaries on Super Tuesday, March 3.
Fundraising
As fundraising goes for candidates in the RCP average, Sanders is in first place with $46.3 million raised year-to-date as of July 16, Politico’s campaign finance tracker reports. Warren follows in second with $35.7 million, and Buttigieg third with $32.3 million. Harris has raised $25.1 million and Biden, $22 million.
John Delaney, whom no one has ever heard of and doesn’t appear in the RCP average, has raised $26.3 million, but $24 million of it is his own money.
Photo: AP Images
