Poll Watch: Democratic voters in California offer strong support to Joe Biden

A recent Quin­nip­i­ac Uni­ver­si­ty poll asked vot­ers in Cal­i­for­nia, the nation’s largest state, about the upcom­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial primary.

The poll shows that for­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden still leads the field, with 26% of Demo­c­ra­t­ic lean­ing vot­ers sup­port­ing his can­di­da­cy. He is trailed by Bernie Sanders (18%) and California’s own Sen­a­tor Kamala Har­ris (17%).

South Bend May­or Pete Buttigieg and Mass­a­chu­setts Sen­a­tor Eliz­a­beth War­ren came a dis­tant joint-fourth, with 7% each.

The Quin­nip­i­ac researchers also asked vot­ers more in-depth ques­tions about the race: who they thought would be the best leader; who they thought had the best chance of beat­ing Trump; and who had the best pol­i­cy ideas.

Biden did well in all three categories.

31% and 35% respec­tive­ly say that he is the best leader and the best can­di­date for beat­ing Trump. Although more respon­dents thought that Bernie Sanders had bet­ter pol­i­cy ideas (23% to Biden’s 13%), 52% of vot­ers say it is more impor­tant for a can­di­date to be a good leader than to have good pol­i­cy ideas.

Biden has is seen as a strong leader by Californians

Biden has not yet declared if he will run for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion, and has recent­ly been rat­tled by a num­ber of events – most par­tic­u­lar­ly, the op-ed writ­ten by Lucy Flo­res that claimed that Biden’s inap­pro­pri­ate touch­ing of her at a cam­paign event in 2014 made her feel “uneasy, gross and confused”.

How­ev­er, the poll showed that Cal­i­for­nia vot­ers don’t seem par­tic­u­lar­ly trou­bled by the accu­sa­tions against Biden.

67% of the women sur­veyed said that the accu­sa­tions against Biden were not seri­ous – that num­ber among Democ­rats was almost three quarters.

Cal­i­for­nia will play an instru­men­tal role in the selec­tion of the next Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee. In 2017 the state decid­ed to move its pri­ma­ry date to the begin­ning of March, join­ing sev­en oth­er states on “Super Tuesday”.

In 2016, Cal­i­for­nia held its pri­maries in June, by which time the most pop­u­lous state’s votes were large­ly irrel­e­vant; by June of 2016, both Hillary Clin­ton and Don­ald Trump were the pre­sump­tive nominees.

Mov­ing the pri­ma­ry to Super Tues­day will make com­pe­ti­tion for California’s over four hun­dred del­e­gates much fiercer (since 1,885 are need­ed to win the nom­i­na­tion) and can­di­dates will be like­ly end up pay­ing much more atten­tion to the spe­cif­ic pri­or­i­ties of Cal­i­forn­ian vot­ers than they did in 2016.

At the time of the change, the state’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty Chair, Eric Bau­mann, said that Cal­i­for­nia was “the beat­ing heart of the nation­al resis­tance to Trump” and should “play a piv­otal role in select­ing a pro­gres­sive cham­pi­on” to face Trump in 2020. This ear­ly polling sug­gests that despite his recent rough patch, Joe Biden has a good shot at becom­ing that pro­gres­sive champion.