BOSTON (WHDH) - With the first votes in Iowa and New Hampshire just weeks away, our new national poll shows the Democratic race is no longer a cluster of candidates running in a bunch.
The once crowded field of Democrats campaigning for president is shrinking.
There are now two clear national front runners: Former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
In our exclusive 7NEWS/Emerson College Poll of Democratic voters, Biden gets 30 percent; Sanders 27 percent. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren with 13 percent is a distant third.
Entrepreneur Andrew Yang with 8 percent leads the next group.
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, with 7 percent, has made a big leap; South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg gets 6 percent; Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, 4 percent.
No other candidate has more than two percent.
But when it comes to expectations, it’s Biden in a runaway.
When we asked: Regardless of who you’ll vote for, who do you think will be the Democratic nominee? 53 percent predicted Biden; 24 percent Sanders; with no one else in double digits.
“Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders have pulled away from the pack,” says Emerson Polling director, Spencer Kimball. “Elizabeth Warren has continued to drop down.”
Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg has jumped into viability, creating a difference in the race.
But for voters, they really expect Joe Biden to be the nominee, and it will be interesting in those early contests if he’s unable to win, and if he’ll lose some of that early support.”
As the Senate begins its impeachment trial, our poll shows nationally, Republicans and Democrats are not glued to their screens.
Thirty-three percent are watching almost all, or a lot of it.
But 67 percent are watching some, hardly any, or none of it.
Well over half the voters we contacted, 58 percent want the senate to call witnesses. Twenty-nine percent say no and 13 percent are unsure.
“About a third of voters are watching this trial, but two-thirds of voters want to see some witnesses on the stand. And we’ll have to see if the republicans succumb to the democrats’ demand,” says Kimball.
Our poll also measures the impact of impeachment on President Trump, revealing deep divisions.
Fifty-one percent of Republicans and Democrats we surveyed think the Senate should remove Trump from office, 49 percent, don’t.
While 48 percent disapprove of his job performance, an almost equal number, 47 percent, approve.
“Despite a majority of voters wanting to throw President Trump out of office, his approval numbers have actually ticked up this month. That suggests that the Democratic strategy is not paying off against the president,” Kimball says.
Forty-five percent, nearly half of all Democratic voters, say they could still change their minds about whom to support.
So, right now, nothing is a sure thing.
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