Post-announcement surge

Biden extends lead by 11 points in CNN poll with post-announcement surge

By CAITLIN OPRYSKO

One of the first polls conducted since Joe Biden finally announced his presidential run shows the former vice president has jumped out to a commanding lead in the 2020 Democratic primary.

According to a CNN poll out Tuesday, Biden's lead in the Democratic primary field grew by 11 percentage points following his announcement Thursday, underscoring his status as the man to beat in the early going in both polling and fundraising. Nearly four in 10 Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters — 39 percent — picked Biden as their top choice to take on President Donald Trump next year, up from 28 percent in March.

By comparison, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is polling in second place, sits 24 points back, at 15 percent in the CNN poll.

Biden’s bounce corresponds with an emphasis on electability over all else in the Democratic primary, with 46 percent of potential Democratic voters calling it “extremely important” for the party to nominate a candidate with a good chance of beating Trump, compared to 31 percent who said the same about a candidate having the right experience to be president.

About a quarter of respondents said it was important that the eventual nominee be willing to reach across the aisle to get things done.

Biden isn’t the only candidate who made gains in the packed field that now includes 20 declared presidential hopefuls. South Bend (Ind.) Mayor Pete Buttigieg also saw a bump in his polling numbers, rising six points from last month to 11 percent. He rounds out the middle tier of candidates, which also includes Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) at 8 percent and followed by Beto O’Rourke at 6 percent and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) at 5 percent. Every other candidate included in the poll sat at 2 percent or less.

While Biden appears to have run away with the lead for now, with the Iowa caucuses still nine months out, more than half of potential Democratic voters said they’re not set in their candidate preference — 64 percent responded that they’re still likely to change their mind. Among the third of those polled who said they’re unlikely to change their mind, Biden sits at 50 percent compared to Sanders at 21 percent and Warren at 8 percent.