Washington primary poll: Bernie Sanders leads at 21% with 'core support'

Bernie Sanders addresses thousands in Seattle's Key Arena on Sunday, March 20, 2016. (GENNA MARTIN/SEATTLEPI.COM) Bernie Sanders addresses thousands in Seattle's Key Arena on Sunday, March 20, 2016. (GENNA MARTIN/SEATTLEPI.COM) Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close Washington primary poll: Bernie Sanders leads at 21% with 'core support' 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

Sen. Bernie Sanders is out front at 21% with "core supporters," Michael Bloomberg moving up in second at 15%, with lots of Washington Democrats still making up their minds less than two weeks before the state's March 10 presidential primary, according to a new Crosscut/Elway statewide poll.

The poll leaves wide open the possibility of a stretch run. Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren held big rallies in the state last week. Former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg comes back to the state on Friday, March 6 for a rally.

"Bernie Sanders has his core supporters, but the rest of the voters are still shopping between candidates," said pollster Stuart Elway. "This poll shows that 63% of people who supported Sanders against (Hillary) Clinton in the 2016 primary election are continuing that support today."

Sanders lost to Clinton in the meaningless beauty-contest 2016 primary. He swept the state's precinct caucuses and was able to field a contentious, raucous Sanders-dominated national convention delegation.

The latest poll pegs undecideds at 22%. Behind Sanders are Bloomberg with 15%, then Warren and Sen. Amy Klobuchar with 11% apiece.

Bloomberg has dominated Washington's airwaves for weeks, and has hit the mail with a leaflet advertising the ex-New York Mayor's longtime role as champion and financial underwriter of the gun safety movement. Bloomberg has financially supported 2014, 2016 and 2018 initiatives in Washington, which have closed the "gun show loophole" on background checks and raised the minimum age for purchase of an assault weapon from 18 to 21.

Warren commercials have begun to run, featuring a tribute by President Obama to her tenacity at a time when he signed into law a federal consumer protection bureau of which she was the architect (and to which the Obama administration was initially cool).

The Sanders campaign on Wednesday fielded its first TV ad, labeled "Pramila" and featuring Seattle's U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal. Jayapal was Bernie's warmup speaker here in 2016, and has become a surrogate traveling the nation in 2020. "He doesn't put his finger up in the air and try to figure out which way the polls are blowing," says Jayapal. "He just fights for what he believes in."

Ballots were mailed out late last week, a day before Warren spoke to a double-overflow crowd of 7,000 people at the Seattle Center Armory and Fisher Pavilion. The Sanders TV ad features film of his big rally at the the Tacoma Dome.

Buttigieg has made three campaign trips to the state, all for fundraising events. He drew 1,100 people to a cookin' low-budget event at the Showbox Theater late last summer, and then adjourned to a pricey party on Lake Washington. Subsequent "ATM visits" have featured quick recitations of stump speech themes, two or three questions, and then exit to the next event.

Washington Lieutenant Governor Cyrus Habib has signed on as Western co-chair of the Buttigieg campaign.

The Crosscut/Elway poll of 400 voters was taken Feb. 15-18. It has a margin of error of 5%.

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