New Poll Shows a Tight Race in Iowa, With Biden Jumping Ahead

The poll, published three weeks before Iowa’s first-in-the-nation nominating contest, found the former vice president with support from 24% of likely Democratic caucusgoers, a bump of 5 percentage points since Monmouth’s most recent Iowa poll, in November.

Biden’s three closest competitors are clumped together in a statistical tie, with Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont earning 18% support, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, 17%, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts earning 15%. The poll had a five-point margin of error.

Sanders has leapt five points since the last Monmouth poll of the state, Buttigieg experienced a five-point drop, and Warren experienced a three-point drop.

The Monmouth poll’s results differ somewhat from those of a CNN/Des Moines Register poll released late last week that showed Sanders atop the Democratic field, with 20% support, although Warren and Buttigieg were in a statistical tie with him. That poll, which was taken in the days just before the Monmouth poll was conducted, found Biden at just 15%.

Taken together, those polls — while conflicting — affirm the general impression that this race remains competitive for each of the four leading candidates, at least in the first two nominating states. All have robust field operations in Iowa and have consistently polled in the double-digits there since early fall. And in New Hampshire, which will hold the country’s first primary just a week after the Iowa caucuses, polls suggest that all four candidates have a viable shot at winning.

The Monmouth poll of Iowa was taken from Jan. 9-12, and surveyed 405 likely caucusgoers. It found that a slim majority of Democratic voters still have not firmly decided on a candidate, meaning that there is still a great deal of fluidity in the state.

It was conducted before the departure of Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, who dropped out of the race Monday and who pulled 4% support in the poll.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .