
A new poll just came out from the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University. Here’s the Wason Center’s press release.

P.S. As a smart friend of mine pointed out, this poll is flawed because it was conducted over 20 days, and “You can’t sample voters over a 20 day period in a race that fluctuates as much as this one has and claim any bit of accuracy.”

Biden leads Virginia’s Super Tuesday field at 22%; in range are Sanders at 17% and Bloomberg at 13%

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. – Virginia voters favor Joe Biden in Tuesday’s Democratic presidential primary, according to a survey of likely voters released today by the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University. In striking distance are Bernie Sanders, who is preferred by 17% of the voters polled, and Mike Bloomberg, at 13%.

Among the other contenders for the Democratic nomination, Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren are the choice of 8% of the voters surveyed; Amy Klobuchar polls at 5%; and Tom Steyer polls at 1%. Andrew Yang, who ended his campaign while the poll was in the field, drew the support of 5%. Another 13% are undecided.

The poll surveyed 866 registered Virginia voters Feb. 3-23, including 561 who said they are likely to vote in Tuesday’s primary. The margin of error for the overall survey is +/-3.5%; for the likely voter subset, +/-4.3%

The Democratic contest has been fractious, and unifying around the eventual nominee is seen as key to denying President Donald Trump reelection. Asked if they would definitely support the party’s nominee in the fall even if their preferred candidate did not win the nomination, 82% overall said they would and 67% said definitely. Of remaining 18%, two-thirds said they were concerned the nominee might be too liberal.

Looking to November, the poll also asked voters whether they wanted to reelect Trump or elect “someone else.” “Someone else” was chosen by 59%, with 38% for Trump. “Someone else” was the choice of women (66%), men (51%), white voters (51%), African Americans (91%), voters 18-44 (68%) and voters 45 and older (56%).

On issues, 60% of Virginia voters prefer to maintain the current private health insurance system, rather than replace it with something like Medicare for All. A large majority of voters (67%) favor reducing student loan debt, but support for cancelling it outright is weak (15%). Other progressive/liberal initiatives fared better, as 56% of voters favor a “wealth tax” of the kind proposed by Warren, including 83% of Democrats, 27% of Republicans and 56% of Independents. Also, 70% of voters support passage of a federal law that would provide 12 weeks of paid family leave, including 87% of Democrats, 49% of Republicans and 69% of Independents.