The first major national poll following last week's Democratic debate showed the basic trajectory of the race virtually uninterrupted. The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found former Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren asserting their dominance at the top of the field, while Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders essentially flatlines and California Sen. Kamala Harris loses steam. Here are the candidates' standings from the poll of Democratic primary voters released late Tuesday as compared to the standings from the same poll released in mid-July.
- Joe Biden: 31% (+5)
- Sen. Elizabeth Warren: 25% (+6)
- Sen. Bernie Sanders: 14% (+1)
- Mayor Pete Buttigieg: 7% (0)
- Sen. Kamala Harris: 5% (-8)
- Entrepreneur Andrew Yang: 4% (+2)
- Sen. Amy Klobuchar: 2% (+1)
- Sen. Cory Booker: 2% (+1)
- Former Rep. Beto O'Rourke: 1% (-1)
- Former HUD Secretary Julián Castro: 1% (0)
Both Biden and Warren should feel relatively good about their standings in this poll. The data held more good news for both candidates, as Warren topped the "enthusiasm" list and Biden led the "comfortability" list.
When asked who primary voters would be "enthusiastic about," here were the results:
- Warren: 35%
- Sanders: 25%
- Biden: 23%
- Buttigieg: 19%
- Harris: 13%
The poll asked respondents to pick one of four categories for each candidate: enthusiastic about, comfortable with, have some reservations about, and very uncomfortable with. NBC writes:
Thirty-five percent of Democratic primary voters say they’re “enthusiastic” about Warren (which is up 9 points since June), another 35 percent are “comfortable” with her and just 6 percent are “very uncomfortable.”
That’s compared with 23 percent who are enthusiastic about Biden, another 41 percent who are comfortable and 13 percent who are very uncomfortable — essentially unchanged since June.
Bernie Sanders’ numbers are 25 percent enthusiastic, 37 percent comfortable and 12 percent very uncomfortable.
So Warren has the highest combined of the first two categories (enthusiastic/comfortable) at 70%, Biden has the second highest combined at 64%, and Sanders comes in third at 62%.
The poll reached 506 Democratic primary voters between Sept. 13-16 and had a 4.4% margin of error.
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly broke out the number of people who say they are “comfortable” with each candidate into a separate category. That category was asked as part of a four-part question and should not have been broken out separately.