A new Quinnipiac poll is out this morning which shows that Sen. Kamala Harris got a dramatic boost after last week’s Democratic debate and Joe Biden’s support has fallen precipitously.
The toplines are Biden 22%, Harris 20%, Warren 14%, Sanders 13%. After that you go way down to Buttigieg at 4 and Booker at 3.
Biden has fallen 8 percentage points since another Quinnipiac poll in early June. But that understates the fall off. If you go back to April 30th, he had the support of 38% of Democratic primary voters. So he’s shedded upwards of half his support. Harris had been locked in the high single digits since March.
This echoes another poll out of Iowa, which doesn’t show any downward movement for Biden (he didn’t start as high as nationwide) but shows a dramatic move in favor of Harris, with most of her new support coming from Sanders.
My sense is that these movements are less Biden’s weakness than Harris’s strength. Or put another way, Biden’s strength is in large measure based on his being a known quantity and many voters thinking he’s a solid bet to win. As other candidates make a convincing case that they can beat Trump too, a lot of Biden’s support becomes shaky.
