Speed Reads

free fall

Joe Biden plunges 13 points in new national poll. He's now just behind Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

The latest 2020 national poll from Monmouth University doesn't look good for former Vice President Joe Biden.

Monmouth's poll released on Monday shows Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) tied at 20 percent, with Biden behind them at 19 percent. Given the poll's margin of error, that means the three candidates are effectively tied thanks to Biden taking a serious dive since a previous poll released by Monmouth in June.

In that June poll, which was released prior to the first two presidential debates, Biden was polling at 32 percent, but he has since plunged 13 points. Sanders and Warren, meanwhile, have improved by six percentage points and five percentage points, respectively. After Biden, there's a large gap before the next candidate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), who polls at eight percentage points with no change from June.

This poll is certainly an outlier in the 2020 field, with other national polls showing Biden maintaining his lead in the race following the first two presidential debates. In fact, The Washington Post reports it's the first major national poll in which Biden doesn't have any sort of advantage over his 2020 opponents.

Monmouth's poll was conducted from Aug. 16-20 and is based on phone conversations with 298 registered voters nationally who identify as Democratic or lean Democratic. The margin of error is 5.7 percentage points. Read the full results at Monmouth.