Two new polls released this week show former Vice President Joe Biden still holds a lead in the 2020 Democratic primary, followed by Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris.
Emerson and Morning Consult's polls indicate only six candidates are above two percent before the second round of Democratic debates, scheduled to take place in Detroit on Tuesday and Wednesday night.
Both had Biden leading by 15 points over Sanders — a sizable advantage at this early point in the race.
The new polling numbers are of particular importance when it comes to candidates and their campaigns. Candidates will have to garner at least 130,000 unique donors and receive the support of at least two percent of respondents in four qualifying polls to appear in the third debate on September 12 and 13, according to The Hill.
Unlike the debates on July 30 and 31, which feature 20 qualified participants, only eight have officially met the qualification for the September debates. According to The Hill, Senators Biden, Sanders, Warren, Harris, Cory Booker, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Rep. Beto O'Rourke, and Andrew Yang, have all met the requirements to appear on stage at Texas Southern University.
While both polls appeared to show similar numbers, they both had different methodologies. Emerson questioned 520 Democratic primary voters between July 27 and July 29, with a margin of error of 4.2 percentage points, and Morning Consult questioned 16,959 registered voters between July 22 and July 28 — who may vote in the primary — with a margin of error of one percentage point.