Although former Vice President Joe Biden has yet to enter the 2020 White House race, he continues to lead declared Democratic candidates among expected New Hampshire voters with less than one year to go until the state’s must-win primary, a new poll suggests.

A University of Massachusetts Amherst survey released Wednesday found that more than a quarter, or 28 percent, of likely Democratic voters said they would support Biden if New Hampshire’s primary were held today.

Twenty percent, in turn, said they’d vote for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who won New Hampshire’s Democratic primary in 2016 and formally entered the 2020 contest on Tuesday, according to poll results.

Likely New Hampshire Democratic voters were more split on U.S. Sens. Kamala Harris, D-California, and Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, with a respective 14 percent and 9 percent saying they’d support them if the state’s primary occurred today.

Another 14 percent, meanwhile, said they were “undecided” about what Democrat they would support in the hypothetical 2020 primary matchup.

Tatishe Nteta, director of the UMass Poll and a political science associate professor, said the findings indicate that despite the Democratic Party’s diverse roster of candidates vying for 2020 nomination, New Hampshire voters “seem to be more comfortable handing the reins to a seasoned veteran.”

“While early, our results suggest that this race is Joe Biden’s for the taking. The question is whether he wants it or not,” she said, noting the speculation surrounding whether the 76-year-old former vice president will mount a 2020 run.

Jesse Rhodes, the associate director of the UMass Poll, offered that the fact that Biden is a known quantity in New Hampshire could give him an advantage over lesser known candidates, like Harris, who held her first 2020 campaign events in the state this week.

That edge, however, also extends to candidates more familiar to New Hampshire voters, like Warren and Sanders, who may be seen as “too liberal” to win in a general election matchup against President Donald Trump, she added.

The UMass poll found Biden leading other Democrats in most demographic groups, including among moderates, older voters and women.

Nearly 40 percent of likely New Hampshire Democratic voters further feel the former vice president represents the party’s best chance of defeating Trump in 2020, followed by 12 percent who said Sanders, 8 percent who said Harris and 6 percent who said Warren is best poised to unseat the incumbent Republican.

More than eight in 10 voters, however, told pollsters that they’d be willing to back another candidates if their initial choice is not on the ballot in 2020.

Twenty-eight percent of respondents said they’d support Harris as their second choice, 26 percent said they’d back Biden and 24 percent said they’d vote for U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, of New Jersey.

Less than a quarter, or 22 percent, named Warren as their second choice and 21 percent said they’d back Sanders if their first choice were excluded from the presidential race, the poll found.

Although Warren saw more support as New Hampshire voters’ second choice, the survey’s results found that the Massachusetts Democrat topped the list of 2020 candidates respondents would not be willing to support, with 26 percent opposing her White House bid.

"Sen. Warren has work to do in order to convince the state’s Democratic electorate that she is indeed the person that will win the election on November 3, 2020,” Nteta said in a statement.

The senator, who stopped in New Hampshire immediately after announcing her 2020 bid, is set to return to the Granite State for a series of campaign events later this week.

The UMass Poll surveyed more than 600 registered voters, including 337 likely Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire, from Feb. 7 to 15. It has a margin of error of plus of minus 4.8 percent.