Poll: In Iowa, Clinton leads with Biden out of the race
With Vice President Joe Biden announcing Wednesday that he would not launch a White House bid in 2016, the race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders is taking a heated turn in Iowa.
According to a new poll of likely Democratic caucus-goers by Bloomberg/The Des Moines Register, a contest without Biden gives Clinton a slightly larger lead over her Vermont rival. With the vice president in the race, Clinton came in at 42 percent of support, followed closely by Sanders at 37 percent, with Biden in third at 12 percent.
But in a Democratic primary without Biden, his backers split between the two top candidates. With the vice president out of the race, Clinton now leads by seven percentage points in the October poll, coming in at 48 percent of support over Sanders' 41 percent.
Former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee also receives a slight benefit from Biden bowing out -- he gains a single percentage point, rising from zero to one percent.
The Iowa survey was taken just days before Clinton's scheduled appearance before the House Select Committee on Benghazi, though a majority of likely Iowa Democratic caucus-goers say they don't believe the investigation is "worth the time and money." Only 14 percent of Democrats said the probe was worth the time and money, as opposed to 79 percent of Democrats who said it wasn't. Six percent of Democrats said they were unsure.
The sentiments are reversed among Republicans: three-quarters of likely GOP caucus-goers believe the investigation is worth the effort. Only 19 percent of Republicans feel that it is not a good use of time and money.
The survey, conducted by Iowa-based Selzer & Co., was taken October 16-19, with 402 likely Democratic caucus-goers. The margin of error is 4.9 percentage points.