Pete Buttigieg leaps 16 points — and into the lead — in latest Iowa poll

(Image credit: CHRIS CARLSON/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

published 17 November 2019

There's been another changing of the guard in Iowa.

South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg took the lead for the first time in the latest Democratic primary poll out of Iowa. The Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom poll, released Saturday, showed the mayor surging to the top ahead of Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Vice President Joe Biden.

It doesn't look like a fluke, though there's been some fluctuation in Iowa throughout the primary's early going. Buttigieg took a relatively commanding lead over the field for the time being, receiving support from 25 percent of likely Iowa caucusgoers in the poll, a startling 16 point leap from his September standing. Warren, who was leading the September poll, fell by six points into second place at 16 percent, while Biden and Sanders were right behind her at 15 percent. Biden, the early frontrunner, fell another five percentage points, but Sanders picked up four.

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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.

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