Poll: Biden leads Sanders by 17 points in Connecticut

Former Vice President Joe Biden holds a comfortable lead over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in Connecticut, according to a poll of the state’s presidential primary scheduled for next month.

A Sacred Heart University poll release Thursday found front-runner Biden leading Sanders by 17 points in Connecticut, with 42.1 percent of registered Democrats supporting his bid while 24.5 percent said they planned to vote for Sanders.

Sanders, who has struggled in recent weeks against a surging Biden campaign, previously lost the state to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primary by just under 5 percentage points, so the survey’s results could be another indication that the Democratic electorate is largely coalescing around Biden’s bid.

Biden holds a clear advantage over President Trump in a hypothetical head-to-head match-up in Connecticut, leading him by 16 percentage points. Sanders, too, leads Trump in the state, though by a slightly smaller margin of 11.6 percent.

The Sacred Heart University poll surveyed 1,000 Connecticut residents from Feb. 24 to March 12, with a margin of error of 3 percentage points that increases for questions asked only of Democratic voters.

Following Thursday’s announcement from Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) that she is dropping out of the 2020 primary, Biden and Sanders are officially the last two candidates vying for the Democratic Party’s nomination. The former vice president leads in pledged delegates and took all three states that held their votes this week.