Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren at the Democratic Presidential Debate on July 30 in Detroit. Warren has passed Sanders for second in a national poll. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images 2020 elections Poll: Warren jumps over Sanders for second place behind Biden

Sen. Elizabeth Warren has leapfrogged Sen. Bernie Sanders for second place nationally in the Democratic presidential primary, according to a new poll out Thursday.

The new Fox News poll of registered voters who say they plan to participate in the Democratic primary or caucus in their state shows that although Warren still trails former Vice President Joe Biden, pulling in 20 percentage points to his 31, she posted an 8-point gain over the previous survey conducted last month. Sanders dropped 5 points in the poll, good for third place with 10 percent support.


The poll shows remarkable growth for Warren over the last five months — she has gained 16 points since March — while Biden has remained somewhat steady over the same period.

Sanders’ second-place lead has diminished steadily over the same period, with Thursday’s survey the first in which he dropped into third place. He has dropped 13 points since May. Sen. Kamala Harris is not far behind him in fourth place, with 8 percent.

Thursday’s poll has no bearing on next month’s debate in Houston, since every candidate polling above 2 percent has already reached the polling threshold for the debate stage.

POLITICO Playbook newsletter Sign up today to receive the #1-rated newsletter in politics Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

The Fox poll shows that any of the top four Democratic contenders would best President Donald Trump in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup. Biden opens up the widest lead against Trump, beating him 50-38, while Harris would have the closest contest — though still outside the margin of sampling error — beating Trump 45-39.

The poll also shows a nearly even split in what Democratic primary voters are looking for in a presidential candidate. Forty-eight percent of voters said they’d like a Democratic nominee to build upon the legacy of former President Barack Obama, while 47 percent said they’d prefer a new approach.

The survey was conducted Aug. 11-13 among a random national sample of 1,013 registered voters and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage for all registered voters. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points for the 483 Democratic primary voters surveyed.