Pete Buttigieg has rocketed to the front of the Democratic pack in the hotly contested Iowa caucuses, a new survey released Tuesday reveals.
The South Bend, Indiana, mayor was the choice of 22 percent of Democrats, followed by former Vice President Joe Biden with 19 percent, Sen. Elizabeth Warren with 18 percent and Sen. Bernie Sanders with 13 percent, according to the Monmouth University Poll.
That’s a jump of 14 points since the last Monmouth poll in August, when Biden led the field with 26 percent.
But Monmouth said the race is up for grabs because the results are within the poll’s 4.6 percentage-point margin of error.
“Buttigieg is emerging as a top pick for a wide variety of Iowa Democrats. While he has made nominally bigger gains among older caucus-goers, you really can’t pigeonhole his support to one particular group. He is doing well with voters regardless of education or ideology,” said Monmouth polling director Patrick Murray.
Other candidates registered single-digit support among all likely caucus-goers.
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar got just 5 percent, while California Sen. Kamala Harris, tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang and former hedge fund manager Tom Steyer notched just 3 percent each.
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard scored just 2 percent.
Meanwhile, the poll found strong evidence to back billionaire Mike Bloomberg’s plan to skip the Iowa caucus, set for Feb. 3, should he enter the presidential race.
He’s by far the most unpopular of any Democratic candidate in the field.
Bloomberg is underwater in the Hawkeye State — where only 17 percent view him favorably and 48 percent unfavorably. Gabbard is the only other candidate with a negative rating.
The poll was taken when news hit that the former three-term New York City mayor was considering entering the race.
Among the 361 likely caucus-goers contacted after he was added to the survey, just one voter selected him as their top candidate choice and only 1 percent named him as a second pick.
“Reports suggest that Bloomberg will skip the February contests if he does get into the race. With dismal numbers like these, it’s easy to see why. But I really cannot imagine that Democrats in the Super Tuesday states would be significantly more receptive to him than Iowa voters,” said Murray.
Murray added, “If the race is still wide open when actual voting begins, it is more likely that Democratic voters will turn to someone who has already been out hustling on the campaign trail. It makes more sense to pay attention to someone like Amy Klobuchar in this scenario than look for a white knight to come riding to the rescue.”