Mayor Pete surges
The Des Moines Register reports:
Pete Buttigieg has rocketed to the top of the latest Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa Poll in the latest reshuffling of the top tier of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.
Since September, Buttigieg has risen 16 percentage points among Iowa’s likely Democratic caucusgoers, with 25% now saying he is their first choice for president. For the first time in the Register’s Iowa Poll, he bests rivals Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who are now clustered in competition for second place and about 10 percentage points behind the South Bend, Indiana, mayor.
Warren, a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, led the September Iowa Poll, when 22% said she was their first choice. In this poll, her support slips to 16%. Former Vice President Biden, who led the Register’s first three Iowa Polls of the 2020 caucus cycle, has continued to slide, falling 5 percentage points to 15%. Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, also garners 15% — a 4 percentage point rise.
So the placings are:
- Pete Buttigieg 25% (+16%)
- Elizabeth Warren 16% (-6%)
- Joe Biden 15% (-5%)
- Bernie Sanders 15% (+4%)
- Amy Klobuchar 6% (+3%)
This poll is done by Ann Selzer who is widely regarded as the best pollster in Iowa. She was the only one to predict Obama beating Clinton in 2008. It’s still just a snapshot of the race today, but the surge in support is significant.
The winner of Iowa caucus doesn’t always get the nomination. Iowa is a very white state and not representative. But it is influential as the first contest of the primaries.
On the Democratic side, the winner of Iowa has won the nomination every election since 1992.
So Mayor Pete may soon join Biden and Warren as a front runner.