Biden opens up 20-point lead over Sanders in Arizona: poll

Former Vice President Joe Biden has opened a 20-point lead over his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), in Arizona, according to a poll released a day before the state’s primary. 

Biden is backed by 51 percent of likely Democratic primary voters surveyed in the Monmouth University poll released Monday. 

Sanders’s support is at 31 percent. 

Sanders leads Biden among Latino voters, 48 to 41 percent, based on the poll. The senator also has a lead with voters under 50 years old, at 56 to 28 percent. 

But Sanders’s support is offset by Biden’s advantage with larger voting blocs in the state, including white voters at 55 percent to Sanders’s 26 percent and voters 50 and over, at 64 percent to the senator’s 16 percent.

Biden also beat President Trump in a hypothetical general election match-up, 46 to 43 percent, but Sanders trailed Trump by 1 point, 43 percent to Trump’s 44 percent, according to the poll. 

Trump narrowly won the state in 2016 by 4 points. 

Biden and Sanders will face off in primaries in Arizona, Ohio, Florida and Illinois on Tuesday. Biden currently has a lead of 154 pledged delegate over Sanders. 

The new poll also found Democratic Senate candidate Mark Kelly leading Sen. Martha McSally (R) by 6 points. Kelly is at 50 percent support and McSally has 44 percent. 

The seat is one of the most vulnerable in the GOP-held Senate. The Cook Political report ranks the race a toss-up. 

The poll was conducted from March 11 to 14 and surveyed 847 Arizona voters. Results based on the full voter sample have a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points. Results based on the sub-sample of 373 likely Democratic primary voters have a margin of error of 5.1 percentage points.