Biden leading Democratic 2020 field among black voters, poll shows

The poll shows that 48% of registered black Democratic voters nationwide support Biden for the nomination, a double digit advantage over the other candidates. The poll was released on Saturday -- nearly two months before the South Carolina primary, which stands as the first real test of black support in the Democratic primary.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has the backing of 20% of black Democratic voters, with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren at 9%, former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg at 4%, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker at 4%, and businessman Andrew Yang at 3%.

Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who has struggled to win over black voters, and billionaire Tom Steyer both hold 2% in the poll.

No other candidates, including Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, broke over 1% among black voters.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, the only African American candidate besides Booker, also received less than 1% support.

There are age and ideology divisions within black voters -- much as there are among Democrats generally -- with younger African American voters more apt to back Sanders and older ones more partial to Biden.

Sanders leads Biden by 42% to 30% among black Democrats ages 18 to 34.

Nearly six in 10 moderate or conservative black Democratic voters say they back Biden.

This Washington Post-Ipsos poll was conducted online January 2-8, 2020 among a random national sample of 1,088 non-Hispanic black adults age 18 and over.

Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. For results among the subset of the 769 Democratic-leaning registered voters, the error margin is plus or minus four percentage points.