Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks during a town hall in Sioux City, Iowa. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images 2020 elections Warren surges ahead of Biden in New Hampshire poll A series of recent early-state polls show Joe Biden and Warren separating from the pack.

New polling conducted since the last Democratic presidential primary debate shows Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden separating from the pack — and notably, from Bernie Sanders — in three key early-voting states.

A Monmouth University poll conducted in New Hampshire and released Tuesday gives Warren a 2-point lead over Biden, 27 percent to 25 percent, well within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.


Sanders, who trounced Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire in 2016 with 61 percent of the vote, is a distant third, at just 12 percent. He’s followed closely by Pete Buttigieg with 10 percent. Kamala Harris of California is fifth, with only 3 percent.

The results closely resemble last week’s Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom poll in Iowa, which also showed Warren narrowly ahead of Biden, with Sanders and Buttigieg well behind the two front-runners.

Additionally, a Suffolk University/USA Today/Reno Gazette-Journal poll in Nevada, also released Tuesday, shows Biden (23 percent) and Warren (19 percent) leading the field in that state’s caucuses, with Sanders (14 percent) trailing the top two. Nevada follows Iowa and New Hampshire in the voting order next February.

Taken together, the new polling suggests Warren has cemented her status as the chief rival for Biden, the leading candidate in nearly all the national polls. Moreover, Warren’s strong standing in Iowa and New Hampshire suggests the second-term Massachusetts senator is well-positioned in the first two states, which could bring a wave of momentum to her candidacy across the country.

Unlike Biden and Sanders, Warren’s poll numbers have been on the upswing over the past few months. She has jumped 19 points since the last Monmouth poll of New Hampshire in May. Other recent polling in New Hampshire has portrayed a competitive three-way race between Warren, Biden and Sanders.

“Warren continues to look stronger with every new poll,” Patrick Murray, the director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, said in a press release accompanying the New Hampshire poll results. “She seems to be picking up support across the spectrum, with gains coming at the expense of both Biden and Sanders.”

Warren’s polling surge in the early states coincides with an uptick in her personal favorability, as her rivals have seen their negatives rise. In the Monmouth New Hampshire poll, Warren is the best-liked candidate, with nearly three-in-four Democratic primary voters, 74 percent, saying they view her favorably — an 11-point increase from the school’s May survey. Biden’s favorable rating is down 14 points from May, from 80 percent then to 66 percent now, and Sanders’ is down 10 points, from 73 percent then to 63 percent now.

Similarly, Warren had the highest favorable ratings (75 percent) in the Iowa poll, besting Biden (67 percent) and Sanders (59 percent).

Buttigieg, the fourth-place candidate in the Iowa and New Hampshire surveys, also has strong favorable ratings and is running stronger in those two states than in national polls.

Warren is rising even as voters say they want a candidate well-equipped to defeat President Donald Trump next November, contradicting previous worries about her electability. In the Monmouth poll in New Hampshire, nearly half of likely Democratic primary voters say their first-choice candidate is both the one they agree with most — and the one with the best odds of beating Trump. Among those voters, 35 percent are supporting Biden, and 34 percent are backing Warren.

In the Suffolk poll in Nevada, a 58 percent majority of likely caucus-goers said the most important thing for Democrats is to nominate a candidate who can beat Trump, while 38 percent say it’s most important for Democrats to nominate a candidate who reflects their priorities and values. But Warren still wins a sizable share of voters, 22 percent, focused on electability, only slightly behind Biden’s 28 percent.

David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston, called Warren’s strong, second-place standing in Nevada “an important inflection point” in the race. “If you add this to her growing strength in Iowa and New Hampshire, you can envision how the field could winnow quickly going into Super Tuesday,” he said.

All three early-state polls released over the past few days show few candidates outside of the top four or five gaining significant traction. Harris is in fourth place in Nevada, according to the Suffolk poll, but with only 4 percent. Buttigieg, Andrew Yang and Tom Steyer were tied for fifth place, with 3 percent.

The Monmouth poll in New Hampshire shows a five-way tie for fifth place, with Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Tulsi Gabbard, Steyer and Yang all at 2 percent.

Gabbard’s 2-percent standing will make her the 12th candidate to qualify for next month’s Democratic debate in Westerville, Ohio, according to POLITICO’s calculations. That could force organizers to split the field of candidates between two nights, after only needing one night for the third debate earlier this month.

The Monmouth poll in New Hampshire was conducted September 17-21, surveying 401 likely Democratic primary voters. The Suffolk poll in Nevada was conducted September 19-23 and surveyed 500 likely caucus-goers, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.