Biden’s Fall Fuels Sanders’ Big Lead in Democratic Poll

(Bloomberg) -- Bernie Sanders has taken a commanding lead over the rest of the Democratic field as Joe Biden has fallen into a tie for distant second place, according to a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll.

Sanders leads the pack with 27% of Democratic primary voters, unchanged from a month ago. But Biden’s support is down 11 percentage points to 15%.

That puts Biden inside the 4.8-point margin of error in a four-way race for second place. Michael Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren are at 14%, and Pete Buttigieg is at 13%. Amy Klobuchar trails the field at 7%.

(Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.)

Biden’s dramatic fall seems to have most helped Buttigieg, up 6 points from January, and Bloomberg, up 5 points. Klobuchar is up 2 points.

The same poll shows major Democratic candidates beating President Donald Trump in head-to-head matchups: Biden by 8 points; Bloomberg by 7 points; Sanders and Buttigieg by 4 points and Klobuchar by 3 points. The margin of error for the matchups was 3.3 points.

The poll of 900 registered voters was conducted Feb. 14-17.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gregory Korte in Washington at gkorte@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Max Berley, Magan Crane

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