With Biden Out, Clinton Likely To Get A Bump In The Polls

Hillary Clinton, already seeing an uptick from her strong performance in the first Democratic primary debate, is likely to get another boost following Vice President Joe Biden's announcement on Wednesday that he won't run for president.

Recent polling tells a consistent story: With Biden out of the race, his supporters will disperse -- and that's generally to Clinton's benefit.

In the most recent Economist/YouGov survey, which was conducted earlier this month, one-fifth of Democratic voters named Biden as their preferred candidate. Among that group, 51 percent said Clinton would be their second choice, while just 30 percent named Sanders and the rest were mostly unsure.

Across six October surveys that reported results with and without Biden, Clinton led Sanders by an average of 23 points when Biden was included, and by 29 points when he was not.

With Biden in the mix, Clinton's share of the vote fell as low as 45 percent; without him, she took a majority of the vote in each case. That's substantially higher than she was polling even during her time as the front-runner in the fall of 2007, leading up to the 2008 Democratic primary.


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