Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont has built a 6-point lead over his closest 2020 Democratic presidential rival in California, which represents the biggest single prize on the map among the 2020 presidential nominating contests.

Mr. Sanders was the top choice of 26% of likely Democratic primary voters in the state, followed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts at 20% and former Vice President Joseph R. Biden at 15%, according to the UC Berkeley Institute for Governmental Studies poll, conducted for the Los Angeles Times and released on Tuesday.

Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg was at 7% support, followed by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg at 6%, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota at 5% and tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang at 4%

In a UC Berkeley poll released last month, Mr. Sanders had been at 24% support, with Ms. Warren close behind at 22%. Mr. Biden had been at 14%, Mr. Buttigieg was at 12% and Sen. Kamala D. Harris of California was at 7%. Ms. Harris has since left the race.

California will send 495 delegates, including 416 pledged delegates allocated by the March 3 primary, to the Democratic National Convention — the biggest group of any state.

By comparison, there are 155 combined delegates up for grabs in the first four nominating contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina.

It takes at least 1,990 pledged delegates to clinch the nomination on the first ballot.

The UC Berkeley poll of 2,895 likely primary voters was taken from Jan. 15-21 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

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