Former Vice President Joe Biden is leading the pack of Democrats looking to knock off President Donald Trump in 2020 in the Sunshine State, according to a new poll.
On Wednesday, Politico released the details of a Bendixen & Amandi International poll which shows Biden out front in Florida with 26 percent even as almost half of Florida Democrats–46 percent–remain undecided. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., places second with 11 percent followed by U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., with 9 percent.
The rest of the field lags in low single digits. U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., pulls 4 percent while four Democrats–former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Tex., U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-NJ–each pulled 1 percent. Bloomberg announced earlier this week that he will not run for president in 2020.
Other Democrats–U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former U.S. HUD Sec. Julian Castro, former U.S. Rep. John Delaney, D-Mary., U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-NY, U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, former Gov. John Hickenlooper, D-Col., Gov. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., and businessman Andrew Yang–all took less than one half of one percent.
Biden is leading with all age groups and does better with African-Americans and Hispanics than he is with white voters in Florida. He also excels with conservative and moderate Democrats but his lead with liberals is far more narrow. Biden takes 25 percent of liberal Democrats while 19 percent of them are for Sanders and 18 percent of them back Harris.
Asked about their politics, 39 percent of Florida Democrats say they are moderates, 32 percent say they are liberals or progressives and 25 percent say they are conservatives.
The oversample of 300 Florida Democrats was included in a poll of 602 Florida voters who are likely to vote in the 2020 election was taken from March 1 through March 4 and had a margin of error of +/- 4 percent.
Kevin Derby can be reached at Kevin.Derby@floridadaily.com.
Vahe Demirjian
March 6, 2019, 4:04 pm at 4:04 pm
Some Cuban Americans have taken issue with Bernie Sanders’ history of comments praising Fidel Castro for promoting free-of-charge medical and educational services for the Cuban people, so they don’t want Sanders to be a Democratic successor to Trump. In particular, they liken such praises to the radical left praising Stalin for turning the USSR into an industrial power and saving the country from the Nazis in WW2. Some Venezuelan Americans accuse him of wanting to make the US another Cuba or Venezuela. Other Cuban Americans, however, who miss Obama’s work to normalize relations with Cuba, may decide to vote to Sanders.