Biden leads Democratic presidential candidates in Nevada poll

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Steve Marcus

Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign stop at the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades Local 159 in Henderson Tuesday, May 7, 2019.

Wed, Jun 12, 2019 (11:59 a.m.)

Joe Biden is leading a large field of Democratic presidential candidates in Nevada, according to a new poll from the Monmouth University Polling Institute.

The poll of likely Democratic caucusgoers found 36% of respondents favored the former vice president, followed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., at 19% and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., at 13%.

It is one of the best polling results for Warren, who has come in behind Sanders in a number of other surveys around the country.

South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg came in fourth at 7%, and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., was fifth at 6%. No other candidate in the field of 24 broke 2%.

Biden polled strongly with those who identified as moderate or somewhat liberal. Among respondents who declared themselves very liberal, Biden’s support was 19%, while Warren and Sanders were at 27% and 26%, respectively.

Biden also led with Latino voters at 27%, followed by Sanders at 19%, Warren at 11%, former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke at 6% and entrepreneur Andrew Yang at 5%. But the poll found 20% of Latino voters have not yet made up their minds.

“Nevada is the first state on the Democrats’ 2020 calendar with an ethnically diverse electorate. Latino voters seem to be particularly up for grabs right now,” Patrick Murray, the institute’s director, said in a statement.

Murray said Warren’s second-place showing may be a result of the prevalence of unions in Nevada.

“Nevada’s highly unionized service sector workforce may be a good fit for Warren’s policy platform when you look at the Democratic electorates in the four early states. However, she is nowhere near the top tier in terms of candidate preferences among Latino and black voters, who make up a significant part of the party’s base here,” he said.

Some of the issues most important to respondents were health care (41%), climate change (17%) and immigration (19%).

On a couple of further-left issues, 51% of respondents said it was very important to nominate someone who supports Medicare for All and 34% said it was very important to nominate someone who would back the Green New Deal, a comprehensive plan to tackle climate change.

The poll, conducted by telephone June 6 to 11, included responses from 370 Nevada voters likely to attend the Democratic presidential caucuses next year.

The poll has a 5.1 percent margin of error. Monmouth polls have an A-plus rating from FiveThirtyEight, a polling and data publication.

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