Despite not much media attention, Elizabeth Warren surges into 2nd nationally in at least one poll

Even with Joe Biden’s entry to the race for the Democratic presidential nomination being the subject of most of the media coverage of the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination in recent days, Elizabeth Warren has surged ahead of Bernie Sanders and into a distant second place in the most recent Quinnipiac opinion poll. Biden leads the Democratic primary field with 38% support nationally, indicative of a trend backed by a couple of other polls showing Biden surging from around 30% or so to nearly 40% since his campaign launch late last week, making Biden a clear, but not prohibitive, frontrunner. Warren is at 12%, tripling her support from the previous Qunnipiac poll that was taken a month ago. Bernie is in third place at 11%, a drop of eight points from the previous Quinnipiac poll.

If the race for the Democratic presidential nomination ends up becoming effectively a two-way race between Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren, that would provide what would likely be the single biggest contrast in a contested Democratic nomination contest since the Dixiecrat era. Biden is seen as a centrist candidate in a field of candidates in which most of his opposition is trying to appeal to progressive voters and is seen as representing the Democratic Party’s less-than-progressive past, whereas Warren is one of the most progressive candidates, if not the most progressive candidate, in the race, and at least arguably the most progressive candidate with a reasonable chance of winning the Democratic nomination.