Pete Buttigieg Surges Past Sanders, Now A Top 3 Candidate In New Iowa Poll

By
Jordan Riddle
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There’s a new top-3 in Iowa.

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has closed the gap on his fellow candidates in a new Iowa poll and now stands as the third candidate, just behind former Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.

As USA Today reports, the South Bend mayor received 13 percent support in the new poll, surging past Senator Bernie Sanders who had 9 percent.

Biden and Warren topped the poll with 18 percent and 17 percent, respectively.

According to USA Today, among voters who watched the fourth Democratic debate, Buttigieg topped the voting with 19 percent of the vote. Biden and Warren each received 17 percent.

USA Today reports: “Those standings reflect significant changes since the Suffolk/USA TODAY poll taken in Iowa at the end of June, when Biden led Warren by double digits and Buttigieg trailed at a distant 6%. California Sen. Kamala Harris, who was then in second place after a strong showing in the first Democratic debate, has plummeted 13 percentage points and is now in a three-way tie for sixth. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders earned 9% support, the same number as in the June poll.”

Billionaire Tom Steyer earned 3 percent of the poll, matching Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, Senator Kamala Harris, and Senator Amy Klobuchar.

The polling figures can drastically change as a whopping 29 percent of people said they were undecided—an increase of 8 percent since the June poll. And, among those who voted in the poll, 63 percent of people said they were open to changing their minds about who they would vote for.

According to the report, David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk Political Research Center, said this new poll shows the Iowa primary election is far from settled.

“Iowa is unquestionably up for grabs,” he said, noting Buttigieg “has found a lane and is accelerating toward the front of the pack, surpassing Bernie Sanders. All of this is happening while the number of undecided voters continues to grow as Democratic caucusgoers pause to reevaluate the changing field.”