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When asked which candidate they would support in their state’s nominating contest, 26 percent of Black voters said they would choose Sanders.
United States Senator and Democratic front-runner Bernie Sanders has widened his lead for the Democratic presidential nomination and overtaken Joe Biden in support among Black voters, according to a Reuters/Ipsos national poll released Tuesday.
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The poll, conducted Feb. 19-25, found that when asked which candidate they would support in their state’s nominating contest, 26 percent of Black voters said they would choose Sanders, up seven points from a previous reading conducted Jan. 29-Feb. 19.
Around 23 percent said they would back Biden, down 10 points from the last survey, and 20 percent would support Bloomberg, a rise of 10 points. The voting bloc until now had largely favored the former vice president.
The Reuters/Ipsos public opinion poll was conducted online, in English, throughout the U.S. It gathered responses from 4,439 U.S. adults. The poll has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of between two and five percentage points.
Among all registered Democrats and independents, 26 percent said they would vote for Sanders, while 15 percent said they were backing Bloomberg and another 15 supported Biden.
This comes days before South Carolina will hold its Democratic primary, ahead of the March 3 Super Tuesday in which 14 states will choose their candidate. However, Feb. 29 vote will be key in a state where black voters make up more than half of the Democratic electorate.
Sanders has won the popular vote in a contested and heavily criticized election in Iowa and has bagged two important wins in New Hampshire and Nevada.
The latter state proved pivotal for Sanders it showed that minorities support the progressive candidate. Among Latino voters, Sanders won the bloc by 40 percent and proved competitive with Black voters, losing them by only 12 percent to Biden.
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