Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* The latest Monmouth University poll found Joe Biden leading the Democratic presidential primary field at the national level with 26% support, followed by Bernie Sanders at 21%. Elizabeth Warren is third with 17%, followed by Pete Buttigieg at 8% and Michael Bloomberg at 5%. The only other candidate to top 3% was Amy Klobuchar, who had 4% support in the poll.
* The Monmouth results also found 43% of voters supporting Trump’s re-election, while 54% want a new president. Those numbers were largely unchanged from last month.
* The latest national Quinnipiac poll also found Biden in the lead with 29%, followed by Sanders at 17% and Warren at 15%. Buttigieg was fourth in the results with 9%, followed by Bloomberg at 5% and Andrew Yang at 4%.
* In hypothetical general-election match-ups, Quinnipiac also found Donald Trump trailing Biden, Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Bloomberg, in margins ranging from four to nine points.
* On a related note, Yang’s 4% showing qualifies him to participate in next week’s Democratic primary debate. He’s the seventh candidate to meet the necessary thresholds, and there will probably not be a eighth. [Update: I’d originally said eight candidates had qualified, because I was counting Kamala Harris. Since she ended her campaign, I’ve corrected this text.] * In New Hampshire, a new MassInc poll for WBUR found Buttigieg narrowly leading Biden in the nation’s first primary contest, 18% to 17%. Sanders was close behind at 15%, followed by Warren at 12%. * Speaking of Warren, Trump lashed out at the Massachusetts senator in rather personal ways during a campaign rally last night. The president said, among other things, that Warren’s recent polling drop happened because “she opened that fresh mouth of hers.” Trump added that he doesn’t believe the senator has seen her husband “in 10 years.” * And in Iowa, the latest WHDH 7 News/Emerson College Iowa Poll found Biden narrowly leading Sanders in the state, 23% to 22%. While some recent polling shows Buttigieg leading among Hawkeye State Democrats, this poll found the mayor third with 18%, followed by Warren at 12%. Also note, Amy Klobuchar was a very competitive fifth in this poll with 10% support.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past." Recommended
