PoliticsBiden takes the Democrats' early lead, with signs of a generational showdown (POLL)

Joe Biden enters as the early frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, albeit with a decided tilt toward older voters that could define the party’s 2020 contest as a generational showdown.

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Biden leading national presidential polls . National polls are a good guide as to how popular a candidate is across the country as a whole, but Many pundits called the debate for Mr Biden and the BBC's Anthony Zurcher agreed, describing it as "the political equivalent of a food fight" with the former

In an open-ended question, 17% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents back Biden, with 11% for Bernie Sanders, 5% for Pete Buttigieg, 4% apiece for Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke and Elizabeth Warren and 1 or 2% for Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar and non-candidates Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama.

See PDF for full results, charts and tables.

Much can change, as evidenced by the 35% who have no opinion, and it’s unsurprising that the two leaders are those with the broadest name recognition – a former vice president and the party’s 2016 runner-up. Long expected to run, Biden announced his candidacy last Thursday.

© Provided by ABC News Inc. 2020 Democratic Primary Vote Choice

There’s a striking generation gap between Biden, 76, and Sanders, 77, who built his insurgent 2016 campaign largely on support from young voters. Today Biden easily leads Sanders, 27-6%, among those age 50 and older, compared with a 9-15% race – Sanders ahead numerically, albeit not significantly – among those younger than 50. Biden is particularly weak among under-30s, with just 3% support vs. Sanders’ 13% (averaging the last two ABC/Post surveys for an adequate sample size).

5 Questions That Will Determine if Joe Biden Can Succeed

Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s entry Thursday into the sprawling Democratic primary has immediately reshaped the race, giving definition to a contest that has been defined mostly by uncertainty. Mr. Biden offers voters a household name, nearly a half-century of political experience and the implied promise of restoring the country to a less polarized, pre-Trump era. But perhaps more than any other presidential front-runner in modern history, he begins his bid confronting deep skepticism from friend and foe alike that he can capture his party’s nomination.

Biden leads among most groups save traditionally GOP-leaning ones, including whites who lack a college degree, conservatives, older adults and rural Americans. (MORE: Biden takes the Democrats ' early lead , with signs of a generational showdown ( POLL )).

Biden ’s support continues to skew older, Sanders’ younger: Among leaned Democrats age 50 and older, Biden leads Sanders by a broad 39-11%. (MORE: Biden takes the Democrats ' early lead , with signs of a generational showdown ( POLL )).

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That said, age isn’t the only differentiator. As detailed below, Sanders trails Biden, in particular, among women, mainline Democrats (as opposed to Democratic-leaning independents), moderates, blacks, college graduates and urban residents. And the race goes 2-1 for Biden -- 19-10% -- when limited to registered voters in this survey, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates.

Strategy and Electability

There are intra-party divisions among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents on strategy and electability. They split, 48-44%, on whether it’s better for the party to nominate a candidate who can best energize the Democratic base or who’s best positioned to win over independents, often the key swing voters in national elections. Leaned Democrats also divide, 47-39%, on whether they’d prefer a candidate who’s closest to them on the issues or who has the best chance of defeating Donald Trump.

Democrats see Biden as wobbly 2020 front-runner

The former veep’s entry into the race opens a more confrontational phase of the campaign. Within hours of Biden’s announcement, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was needling him for his past positions supportive of Wall Street, while she and other Democratic contenders chided his high-dollar fundraising in appeals to their own small donor bases. But the overarching narrative continues to be the primary field’s lack of definition. Even with Biden in the race, several more prospects — among them, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Gov. Steve Bullock (D-Mont.) — are still looking to get in.

PHILADELPHIA — Joe Biden took a major step toward clinching the Democratic nomination on Tuesday with dominant wins in a string of states, including the night’s biggest prize: Michigan. The thrashing began almost as soon as polls closed at 8 p.m. EDT, when Biden was declared the winner

President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden kicked off their first fiery presidential debate Tuesday night, sparring over everything from the Supreme Court nomination, coronavirus and Biden 's sons, with moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News admonishing Trump several times for interrupting.

© Provided by ABC News Inc. Democratic Priorities for 2020

The strategy question shows some differences in candidate choices. Among those who think it’s best to pick the candidate who can energize the party’s base, Biden leads Sanders by 18-7%. Among those more concerned with appealing to independents, the two are essentially even, 17-16%. (Buttigieg has 8% support among those focused on appealing to independents, vs. 3% among those more concerned with motivating the base.)

It’s a logical result; Sanders’ support in 2016 came from independents rather than Democrats by nearly a 2-1 margin.

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There’s no difference on this question between liberal and moderate leaned Democrats, but there is by race: Nonwhites, by 53-39%, lean toward a focus on energizing the Democratic base, while whites split about evenly, 43-48%. (Nonwhites account for nearly half of all leaned Democrats, 48%, compared with 20% of leaned Republicans.)

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For its part, the question of whether leaned Democrats prefer a candidate who’s closest to them on the issues or best able to defeat Trump does not substantially impact candidate preference. Biden has virtually identical support in these two groups, 17 and 18%, respectively; Sanders, 13 and 9%.

Biden's launch riles up Trump

President Trump's decision to ramp up his attacks on Joe Biden suggests he views the former vice president as a major threat at the outset of the 2020 race. 

As the Democratic front-runner, Biden will be under a microscope. “A lot of the message was based on sort of ‘time for generational change.’ Now, he is sort of the opposite of But for all the enthusiasm on the ground, there were early signs of indiscipline, starting at the top. Mr. Biden , leading the Senate committee overseeing the confirmation process, was gifted a high-profile showcase, with the

“Whatever position I take on that, that will become the issue,” Biden said. “The issue is the American people should speak. Trump even interrupted Wallace as the moderator began to ask a question about his administration’s lack of a comprehensive health plan, with which the president disagreed.

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Groups

Among demographic groups, Biden has virtually identical support from women and men -- 16 and 18%, respectively -- regardless of reports by several women that he made them feel uncomfortable by the way he hugged or touched them, and criticism of his handling of the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearings in 1991. Sanders, for his part, does a bit better with men than with women, 14 vs. 8%.

Sanders struggled to win support from nonwhites in 2016, losing them to Hillary Clinton, 71-28%, in primaries in which exit polls were conducted. Today Biden leads Sanders among nonwhites overall by 16-10%, including 19-3% among blacks (compared with a close 5-8% among Hispanics).

Sanders also struggled among mainline Democrats and political moderates, losing them to Clinton by 64-35% and 62-36%, respectively. Today Biden has twice Sanders’ support among mainline Democrats and moderates alike.

Biden does slightly better with college graduates than non-graduates, 22 vs. 14%, while Sanders runs essentially evenly in both groups, 12 and 10%. Among others, Warren does 8 percentage points better with graduates than non-graduates, and Buttigieg does 7 points better. Non-graduates, who tend to be less engaged politically, are far more apt than graduates to have no current preference.

Joe and Jill Biden respond to women who say he made them uncomfortable

Joe Biden and Jill Biden sat down with ABC's "Good Morning America" co-anchor Robin Roberts and addressed issues from Biden's past that have drawn criticism. "I've always thought that part of leadership, part of politics was listening to people, hearing them, making them feel comfortable," Biden told Roberts Monday. "It's my responsibility to be more sensitive to whether or not someone wants me to reassure them or wants to say hello or wants to show affection and support. And that's my responsibility.

In another difference in support profiles, Biden has 18% backing in urban centers, compared with Sanders’ 7%.

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Results given in this report are not restricted to registered voters, since there’s plenty of time to register before the caucus and primary season begins in Iowa next Feb. 3. Looking just at registered voters doesn’t make much difference in any case, but for optics: As noted, Biden goes to a 2-1 lead over Sanders, 19-10%.

© Provided by ABC News Inc. 2020 preference among leaned Democrats

Regardless, all these results require an important note of context: Early leaders sometimes are nomination winners, but not always. See, for example, Jeb Bush (2016) and Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani (both 2008). Indeed, in crowded Republican races, Ben Carson, Rand Paul and Scott Walker all polled competitively at points in the 2016 campaign, as did Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Michele Bachman and Sarah Palin in the 2012 race; all later faded. These are early days in the 2020 race – and if history provides any lesson, it’s that campaigns matter.

Methodology

This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone April 22-25, 2019, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,001 adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 points, including the design effect, for the full sample. This analysis is based on results among 427 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, with an error margin of 5.5 points. Partisan divisions are 29-26-36 %, Democrats-Republicans-independents.

The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates of New York, N.Y., with sampling and data collection by Abt Associates of Rockville, Md. See details on the survey’s methodology here.