College Students Overwhelmingly Reject Joe Biden, Embrace Bernie Sanders: Poll

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders maintained his polling lead ahead of all 2020 Democratic presidential candidates among college students, while former Vice President Joe Biden was overwhelmingly ignored, according to a recent survey.

Sanders stood atop the latest Chegg/College Pulse weekly poll of Democrat and Democrat-leaning U.S. college students with 30 percent of support. He was followed by Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren with 26 percent, and Andrew Yang, who at 10 percent had the most consistent week-over-week increases in backing. Trailing back in single digits was Biden, who has seen his support among liberal college students fall dramatically from 23 percent in March to just nine percent this week.

Sanders has led the poll every week since March, although support for Warren and Yang has more than quadrupled and tripled, respectively, for their campaigns.

The weekly poll of more than 1,500 U.S. college students showed Warren picking up three percentage points since last week as Sanders held steady for the third week at 30 percent. Sanders' highest polling percentage was in March when he held onto exactly one-third of support (33 percent) before dipping to his lowest of 24 percent in May, and again in late July before rebounding.

Biden has steadily lost support among Democratic college students since early July and now sits in the bottom rung of candidates who only have single-digit support. When the Chegg/College Pulse weekly polling began in March, Biden held on to 23 percentage points before dropping off dramatically between late June and early July.

Warren has seen the largest increase in support since the college student poll started last spring, having more than quadrupled her support from just 6 percent in March to now 26 percent. Last week, Warren surpassed Biden as the Democratic front-runner in several polls, including a four percentage-point lead over him in the latest Economist/YouGov weekly tracking survey. Sanders was the only other candidate to receive double-digit support in that survey.

Sanders maintained his spot atop the Chegg/College Pulse weekly poll when race, gender or sexual orientation are factored in to the data. However, respondents who described themselves as a "Strong Democrat" supported Warren over her Independent Senate colleague by a five-point lead of 36 to 31 percent.

Falling behind Sanders, Warren, Yang and Biden in the poll to round out the top five is South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, with 7 percent; former Texas congressman Beto O'Rourke with 4 percent; and California Senator Kamala Harris with 3 percent, a drop of one point.

All the other remaining candidates received less than 1 percent of support from Democrat-leaning college students.