Three front-runners in tight race for North Carolina Democratic primary, polls show
The three front-runners in North Carolina’s Democratic presidential primary are in a tight race, with Sen. Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden and Michael Bloomberg all within six points of each other in the state’s most recent poll.
Early voting has already started for the Democratic primary in North Carolina. The election will be on Super Tuesday, March 3, when voters from 14 states will go to the polls to pick a Democratic nominee for president.
The poll released Tuesday by Public Policy Polling puts Biden at 23% of likely voters, with Sanders at 20% and Bloomberg at 17%.
The poll tracking website FiveThirtyEight actually has the candidates in a closer race, with the three candidates polling within less than 4 percentage points of one another on average in North Carolina.
“Biden owes his small advantage to support from African American voters,” PPP said, with 36% of black voters. The poll found 21% of black voters favor Bloomberg while 16% prefer Sanders.
Biden’s popularity with black voters “helps him overcome the edge Sanders has with white voters,” PPP said. Sanders has 22% of white voters, the poll found, with “18% for Biden, 15% for Bloomberg, 14% for Buttigieg, and 12% for Warren.”
“The numbers in North Carolina show the typical splits between the candidates along generational and party lines,” PPP said.
Almost a third of people described in the poll as “seniors” favor Biden, but that number drops with age, according to the poll. About a quarter of “middle aged voters” support Biden and 13% of young voters plan to vote for the former vice president.
Bloomberg’s numbers looks about the same with age groups in the poll, with the most support coming from older voters.
“Sanders has the opposite trend, getting 33% with younger voters and 17% with middle aged voters, but just 8% among seniors,” PPP said.
Separate polls last week showed different results on how close the race was. A SurveyUSA poll released Feb. 18 found Biden, Bloomberg and Sanders all between 20 and 22%.
Another poll, this time from University of Massachusetts Lowell, found likely primary voters leaned toward Sanders at 23%, Bloomberg at 20% and Biden at 16% when it was released Feb. 20.
This story was originally published February 26, 2020 at 11:17 AM.
