No More Democrats Qualify for Presidential Debate in New Poll

(Bloomberg) -- The next debates for the Democratic presidential nomination may be limited to 10 candidates, with half the pack apparently failing to achieve the qualifying milestones, according to the latest sanctioned polls released Wednesday.A Quinnipiac University survey found that former Vice President Joe Biden leads the pack with 32% support among Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters. Biden is followed by Senators Elizabeth Warren at 19%, Bernie Sanders at 15%, and Kamala Harris at 7%. South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg got 5% and entrepreneur Andrew Yang received 3%, but no other candidate exceeded 1%.A USA Today/Suffolk University Poll released Wednesday found similar results, with Biden retaining a wide lead at 32%, Warren at 14% and Sanders with 12%. Only three other candidates scored above 2% in this poll: Buttigieg, Harris and Yang. Former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke and New Jersey Senator Cory Booker were both at 2%.The polls, which on the list sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee, appear unlikely to help any other candidates qualify for the next round of debates in Houston in September.It represented one of the final chances for candidates to make the cut by Wednesday’s deadline: qualifying candidates at least need 130,000 donors and to register at least 2% support in four qualifying polls.About half of the current field has yet to qualify, even accounting for the three recent dropouts: John Hickenlooper, Jay Inslee and Seth Moulton. If one more candidate hits the threshold, the event will be broadened.Billionaire investor Tom Steyer looks to have the best chance to get in but failed to top 1% in this Quinnipiac poll.The Quinnipiac University poll, conducted from Aug. 21-26, surveyed 1,422 self-identified registered voters nationwide with a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points. The survey of 648 Democratic voters and independent voters who lean Democratic has a margin of error of 4.6 percentage points.The USA Today/Suffolk poll of 424 registered voters who plan to vote in Democratic caucus or primary was taken Aug. 20-25 and has a margin of error of 4.76 percentage points.(Updates with USA Today/Suffolk poll in third paragraph.)To contact the reporter on this story: Elizabeth Wasserman in Washington at ewasserman2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Justin BlumFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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