Elizabeth Warren leads Joe Biden in a new poll, but Biden maintained a larger margin of victory over Trump

Elizabeth Warren.
(Image credit: Ringo H.W. Chiu/AP)

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was ahead of former Vice President Joe Biden in the latest poll from Quinnipiac University released Tuesday, but it still looks like Biden has more appeal among black voters and potential swing voters at the moment.

Warren wrangled support from 29 percent of the voters surveyed overall, compared to Biden's 26 percent, while the former vice president was trouncing Warren among black voters, 36 percent to 20 percent.

Biden also led the Massachusetts senator by 16 points among voters who "lean" Democratic. Warren actually saw a pretty precipitous drop when it came to that distinction — 33 percent of Democratic voters were backing her in the survey, compared to just 14 percent of those who leaned Democratic. Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) both had higher marks in the Democratic-leaning category than with surefire Democrats.

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That might have something to do with why Biden still held a largely head-to-head lead over President Trump (51 percent to 40 percent) than Warren (49 to 41), despite Warren having the overall edge. In the end, this appears to be yet another poll that will complicate the already-complex "electability" debate.

The Quinnipiac University poll was conducted over the phone between Oct. 4 and Oct. 7, and 1,483 registered voters were surveyed nationwide. The margin of error was 4.7 percentage points. See the full results of the poll here.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.