In the Delegate rich state of Texas a new bump in the polls for Sanders.
The latest University of Texas — Texas Tribune poll now has Bernie Sanders in first place in Texas.
Sanders has gone from being 3rd in October behind Biden and Warren and now has a lead of 24% to Biden’s 22% and Warren clocks in at 15%.
Bloomberg is in at 4th at 10%.
“Most of the movement has been Sanders and Bloomberg, with Biden [holding] still,” said Joshua Blank, research director for the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. “To be unable to increase his vote share is pretty telling for Biden.”
While Biden’s support was static, Sanders was surging in Texas, and Bloomberg was rising on the strength of millions of his own money spent on advertising after a late start.
More telling is that Independents are a key demographic, a group that Sanders appealed to in his last bid in 2016.
"With Trump at the top of the ballot, in congressional and legislative races where candidates are running with margins of 5% or less, where the independent [voters] go could become a factor," Henson said. "It adds uncertainty to those races."
With Sanders’ strong support among Independents it would give a boost to down ticket races.
In head to head match ups, Sanders scores closest, down 2 points to Trump.
But when pitted against some of the top Democrats in hypothetical head-to-head contests, the president topped them all, if somewhat narrowly. Trump would beat Sanders by 2 percentage points, 47%-45%, within the poll’s margin of error. He’d beat Biden 47-43, Warren 47-44, Bloomberg 46-41, Buttigieg 47-42, and Klobuchar 46-41.
Good news here is all Democrats are basically within the margin of error against Trump. And in other good news for the second largest delegate state, Texas, in the general election….
"The Trump trial ballots confirm what we’ve seen, that Trump is winning, but he clearly is under-performing, given the party profile in the state," said Daron Shaw, a government professor at UT-Austin who co-directs the poll. "It is interesting when you put a flesh and blood Democrat up there, it drops that number, but here’s a Republican in a Republican state who’s not at 50%, which is a sign of weakness."
FYI
Asked about their second choices for the presidential nomination, 48% of Democratic voters who support Sanders listed Warren. Biden’s voters listed Warren (25%) and Bloomberg (24%). Warren supporters’ second choices were Sanders (43%), Biden (15%) and Klobuchar (14%). Biden was the second choice for 28% of Bloomberg’s supporters in the survey, followed by Warren (20%).
There has been speculation that if the changing demographics of more minority voter turnout in Texas gave a Democrat that state’s delegates in a Presidential election, combined with California, there would be no path to the White House for a Republican President.
This is good news for Sanders, and for every other Democratic candidate vying to be the Nominee.