New poll shows Bernie with another double-digit lead over Dem field - POLITICO

Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks during a campaign rally at University of Nevada on Tuesday. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has grown a double-digit lead over the rest of the Democratic presidential field in another nationwide survey, further bolstering his ascendant campaign three days before the Nevada caucuses.

Sanders enjoys the support of 32 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll released on Wednesday. He finished well ahead of former Vice President Joe Biden, who came in second place with 17 percent support, and former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg, who ranked third with 14 percent.

Behind the survey's three top-polling candidates are Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren with 11 percent, former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg with 7 percent and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar with 6 percent.

The results of the ABC News/Washington Post poll come after an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist survey published on Tuesday showed Sanders leading his competitors for the Democratic nomination by a similarly wide margin.

In that national survey, Sanders garnered 31 percent support among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents — outpacing Bloomberg with 19 percent, Biden with 15 percent, Warren with 12 percent, Klobuchar with 9 percent, Buttigieg with 8 percent, and billionaire activist Tom Steyer with 2 percent.

Despite Sanders' newly cemented frontrunner status, he is likely to dodge the majority of the incoming fire from his rivals at the televised debate on Wednesday night in Las Vegas. Instead, the Democratic contenders have signaled their intention to target Bloomberg, whose steady rise in the polls has scrambled the primary field and irked candidates across the ideological spectrum.

Bloomberg has been making inroads in the more than a dozen Super Tuesday states holding primaries on March 3, blanketing the airwaves with hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign advertising and seeking to establish himself as the moderate alternative to Sanders' candidacy.

The billionaire businessman's rise in the polls has been especially remarkable given his late entry into the race — he only announced his White House bid last November — and his absence from the first four presidential nominating contests, states that typically play an outsize role in determining the nominee.

The ABC News/Washington Post poll, produced by Langer Research Associates, was conducted by phone from Feb. 14-17 among a random national sample of 1,066 adults. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus-or-minus 3.5 points.

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