Vice President Joe Biden would draw support from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton if he jumped into the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, according to a CNN/ORC poll released Monday.
Clinton polled first nationally among Democratic voters at 42 percent while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Biden polled at 24 percent and 22 percent respectively.
But when Biden was taken out of the survey, Clinton’s lead among Democratic voters became much stronger.
She polled at 57 percent when America’s Happy Warrior is not a choice for voters. Sanders’ support marginally increases to 28 percent. Even former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley saw a jump in support to 2 percent.
The poll was conducted among 392 registered voters who describe themselves as Democrats or independent-leaning Democrats from Sept. 17 to 19 by landline and cell phone. The margin of error was plus or minus 5 percent.
Of course it does. No offense to Bernie, some days I lean toward him and other days toward Hillary, but the MSM has been diluting Hillary’s lead by including Biden, who hasn’t declared, in these surveys for some time now. Because “horse race” “Hillary Derangement Syndrome”.
Biden getting in would probably be great for Hillary, because the news media narrative would cease to be about her emails and Bernie fever and become Joe vs. Hillary. It would be great for the Democratic Party because she’d have to actually defend her retro hawkishness against The Biden’s more dovish foreign policy positions, and we’d hear a real argument there. It would also force her to really account for that Iraq vote and figure out how to look hawkish without setting us up to get drawn into another series of stupid wars.
Either way, she’s the eventual nominee, barring an intern scandal or similar. How much more does Biden want to sacrifice for his party? He’s probably not looking for another hitch as VP.
CNN has a different take on this poll than does TPM: Poll: Clinton’s lead over Sanders grows.