Poll: Joe Biden Passes Bernie Sanders, Gains on Hillary Clinton

A new Monmouth University poll shows that still-not-a-candidate Joe Biden is gaining momentum, having passed (democratic) socialist Bernie Sanders and gained ground on problem emailer Hillary Clinton among voters who are registered or lean Democrat.

Of 339 respondents, 22% said they would back Veep, former Delaware Senator, son of Scranton Biden if the 2016 election were held today — up from just 12% a month ago. (FWIW, he scored 16% in this measure back in April when his nascent candidacy was extremely nascent.) While Sanders was eclipsed by Biden — granted, in a poll with a 5.3% margin of error — his support has also trended upward; his 20% support is up from 16% last month. The big “loser” here, of course, is Clinton, whose numbers ticked down from 52% to 42%.

Which means that, yes, she’s still leading by quite a bit. And her favorability, while down from 82% in December is still very high at 71%. Meanwhile, Biden’s favorability is peaking at 71%  — nearly double his December mark of 46%. (Sanders’ 41% favorability is up from 21% in December but offset by the fact that his favorability may have leveled off — and that 45% of respondents still had no opinion about him.)

While 23% of respondents say they’d be more likely to support a candidate Biden if he were to name Elizabeth Warren as his running mate, Sanders supporters (43%) are more than twice as likely than Clinton supporters (18%) to be swayed by a Warren pairing. Would that be enough to get Biden past the still-formidable Hillary? All caveats about announcement bumps — or, in this case, speculation bumps — of course apply.

Meanwhile, Jim Webb, Lincoln Chafee and Martin “Don’t Call me Tommy Carcetti” O’Malley continue to pair dismal support with dreadful favorables.

Dig into the numbers here:

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