BOSTON — Most young voters prefer Bernie Sanders, but that doesn't mean they won't vote for former Vice President Joe Biden in a November election against President Donald Trump, according to a new poll released Thursday by the Harvard Institute of Politics.

Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, holds a 60%-30% lead over Trump among likely voters ages 18 to 29 years old, the poll found, only one point below a 62%-31% lead Sanders, the Vermont senator, would have among young voters if he were the nominee.

The leads are similar even though the same poll found 50% of likely young voters view Biden unfavorably. Sanders is viewed favorably by 58% of young voters, compared with 42% for Biden.

"This is less about Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden and more about Donald Trump," said John Della Volpe, director of polling at Harvard's Institute of Politics. "And I think there is a sense that at this stage, young progressives and the center-left really have really seemed to unite on that front."

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The poll, a sample of 2,546 people ages 18-29, was taken between March 11 and March 23 as Biden was widening his delegate lead and before Sanders dropped out of the Democratic primary and endorsed Sanders. The poll, which was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs, has a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.

Biden's ability to turn out young progressive voters to the polls is widely seen as one of his campaign's biggest weaknesses. But Della Volpe warned the new poll results do not mean Biden can afford to stop working for their votes.

In 2016, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton had an even larger lead among young voters against Trump at this point, 61%-25%, but she ended up with just a 55%-36% advantage among young people in the election over Trump, according to exit polls. It contributed to her defeat.

"Currently, they are giving him the benefit of the doubt," Della Volpe said, referring to Biden. "There are a lot of young people who preferred Sanders, voted for Sanders, but are willing to say in a two-person match-up, they'd be with Biden right now. He cannot take that cohort for granted. And my read over his activities the last few weeks is that he's not taking them for granted."

Biden has been courting progressive Democrats who backed Sanders in the primary, this month unveiling policy proposals to lower the eligibility age for Medicare to 60 years years old and forgive college debt for millions of Americans.

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll of all voters released this week found Biden ahead of Trump among all likely voters, 49%-42%. Biden holds a 5.9 point lead in Real Clear Politics' average of polls.

The Harvard poll also found the coronavirus outbreak now tops the concerns of young people, with 19% ranking it No.1, followed by health care, 17%, the economy, 14%, and the environment, 9%.

Notably, the poll was taken before many states started imposing stay-at-home orders and the COVID-19 death count started to rapidly increase.

"This is just another anxiety and stresser that young people are being forced to deal with," Della Volpe said, comparing it to issues like the Great Recession, school shootings and the increasing cost of living that have affected young people. "Now with this on top of it, this is a lens of which I think they're kind of engaging in politics in 2020."

Follow Joey Garrison on Twitter @joeygarrison.