Three 2020 election polls by major news organizations were released Sunday, a year and one day (2020 is a leap year) before the 2020 presidential election and less than 100 days before the Iowa caucuses.
The big picture: The trio of polls — by Washington Post/ABC News, Fox News, and NBC News/Wall Street Journal — show a trio of Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders steadily pulling away from the pack. Mayor Pete Buttigieg, meanwhile, is consistently polling in a second tier by himself, while the rest of the field occupies the low single digits.
What to watch: To qualify for the Dec. 19 debate hosted by Politico and PBS NewsHour, candidates need to hit 4% in four DNC-approved polls (or 6% in two DNC-approved early state polls) and receive donations from 200,000 unique contributors.
- With Sunday's polls, Biden, Warren, Sanders, Buttigieg and Sen. Kamala Harris have qualified for the debate.
- Sen. Amy Klobuchar got closer to qualifying for the debate after hitting 5% in the NBC/WSJ poll, her third qualifying poll. Klobuchar’s campaign has said she has already crossed the donor threshold.
By the numbers
Washington Post/ABC News poll:
- Joe Biden: 27%
- Elizabeth Warren: 21%
- Bernie Sanders: 19%
- Pete Buttigieg: 7%
- Cory Booker: 2%
- Julián Castro: 2%
- Tulsi Gabbard: 2%
- Kamala Harris: 2%
- Andrew Yang: 2%
- Michael Bennet: 1%
- John Delaney: 1%
- Amy Klobuchar: 1%
- Tom Steyer: 1%
- Joe Biden: 31%
- Elizabeth Warren: 21%
- Bernie Sanders: 19%
- Pete Buttigieg: 7%
- Kamala Harris: 3%
- Andrew Yang: 3%
- Cory Booker: 2%
- Tulsi Gabbard: 2%
- Amy Klobuchar: 2%
- Tom Steyer: 1%
Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll:
- Joe Biden: 27%
- Elizabeth Warren: 23%
- Bernie Sanders: 19%
- Pete Buttigieg: 6%
- Amy Klobuchar: 5%
- Kamala Harris: 4%
- Andrew Yang: 3%
- Cory Booker: 2%
- Tulsi Gabbard: 2%
- Julián Castro: 1%
- Michael Bennet: 1%
Methodologies
Washington Post/ABC News poll: This poll was conducted between Oct. 27–30 among a random national sample of U.S. adults reached on cellphones and landlines. The margin of sampling error is ±5.5 percentage points among the sample of 452 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independent adults, and is ±6 points among the sample of 402 Democratic-leaning registered voters.
Fox News poll: This poll was conducted between Oct 27–30 under the joint direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company (R). It includes interviews with 1,040 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide who spoke with live interviewers on both landlines and cellphones. The poll has a margin of sampling error of ±3 percentage points for all registered voters and 4.5 points for Democratic primary voters (471).
Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll: This poll was conducted between Oct. 27–30 among 900 adults, including 495 respondents with a cellphone only. The margin of error for 900 interviews among adults is ±3.27%. The margin of error for 720 interviews among registered voters is ±3.65%. The margin of error for 414 interviews among Democratic primary voters is ±4.82%.
Go deeper: How to read 2020 election polls
