Former Vice President and 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden has a huge lead in a new South Carolina poll released Monday.
Biden earned 46% support among respondents in South Carolina, according to the Post and Courier poll. That’s a huge lead over fellow candidate and Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who only earned 15% support.
The paper also noted that Biden’s numbers are up 14 percentage points in the state over the last month. (RELATED: Flashback: Joe Biden Suggested Building A 40-Story Fence To Stop Flow Of Drugs From ‘Corrupt Mexico’)
Joe Biden takes the lead in South Carolina, per @postandcourier/@ChangePolls pic.twitter.com/6my5qr7LzI
— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) May 13, 2019
Democratic California Sen. Kamala Harris took up third with 10% support; and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg tied with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren for fourth place, each earning 8%.
Local Democratic Party chairman Kenneth Glover told the Post and Courier that Biden has “always been popular in South Carolina and always maintained good relationships here, so people were really excited about him getting in.”
Biden’s also enjoying a national surge as well. He recently earned 40% support among Democrats nationwide according to a Morning Consult poll released Tuesday, up from 30% just two weeks prior.
New: Biden’s surge continues in latest Democratic primary tracking data:
Biden – 40% (+4)
Sanders – 19% (-3)
Warren – 8% (-1)
Harris – 7% (+0)
Buttigieg – 6% (-2)
O’Rourke – 5% (+0)https://t.co/19xcvbKDo2— Morning Consult (@MorningConsult) May 7, 2019
Biden also dominated in another key metric: media mentions. A recent analysis conducted by statistics website FiveThirtyEight revealed that cable news networks mentioned the former Vice President 2,232 times in the past month. Although that’s lower than the 3,393 times he was discussed last month, it’s still leaps and bounds above the next highest candidate according to the analysis.
Biden officially announced his candidacy for the presidency in April, taking the time to attack President Donald Trump for his response to the 2017 violence in Charlottesville.
“We are in the battle for the soul of this nation,” he said in the video announcement. “If we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation. And I cannot stand by and watch that happen.”
The poll surveyed 595 likely Democratic primary voters from May 5 through May 9, and the poll had a margin of error of 4 percentage points in either direction.