Sen. Kamala Harris of California has jumped into a virtual tie with former Vice President Joe Biden in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. This is mostly due to the significant inroads she has made with black votersfollowing her widely praised debate performance last week. This is according to a new national poll released on Tuesday.
The latest Quinnipiac University poll of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters showed Biden with 22 percent support and Harris with 20 percent. This indicates a double-digit jump for her since the university’s previous poll last month.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont were in third and fourth place in the poll, with 14 percent and 13 percent, respectively. Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, was in fifth, with 4 percent support.
No other candidate got more than 3 percent in the poll.
Biden’s 2 percentage point lead over Harris was within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
“Round 1 of the Democratic debates puts Senator Kamala Harris and former Vice President Joe Biden on two different trajectories, as support for Harris surges but continues to slip for Biden,” Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Mary Snow said in a statement. “Biden’s once-commanding lead has evaporated,” she added.
The poll, conducted June 28 to July 1, also showed that Harris had caught up with Biden in receiving support from black Democratic voters — a bloc with which Biden has done well.
In the latest poll, Biden’s support among black Democratic voters shrunk to 31 percent from 48 percent in the June poll. Harris, on the other hand, saw her support among black Democratic voters grow to 27 percent, from 11 percent in the June poll.
Do you believe that this trend will continue? Is Biden on his way down in the polls? Will Harris continue to climb? We look forward to seeing your comments.