She's been drawing massive crowds around the country, and now she's surging in the first contest of the 2020 campaign. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has overtaken Joe Biden in Iowa by two percentage points, a new poll from CNN and the Des Moines Register discovered.
???? Elizabeth Warren narrowly leads the @DMRegister/@CNN Iowa Poll for the first time.
— Brianne Pfannenstiel (@brianneDMR) September 22, 2019
Warren: 22%
Biden: 20%
Sanders: 11%
Buttigieg: 9%
Harris: 6%
Booker: 3%
Klobuchar: 3%
Gabbard: 2%
O’Rourke: 2%
Steyer: 2%
Yang: 2%https://t.co/E9WnqJWaT4
It came as a surprise to the pollsters.
“This is the first major shakeup” in the race, said J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co. “It’s the first time we’ve had someone other than Joe Biden at the top of the leader board.”
But Warren's impressive crowd sizes suggest this surge was building for some time. Her New York City rally last week was packed. To an audience of 20,000, the senator revisited a major campaign theme and pledged to root out "corruption" in Washington. The progressive candidate also picked up a major endorsement from The Working Families Party. That was a tough pill to swallow for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who secured the WFP's endorsement in the 2016 election.
Other candidates are struggling. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker's campaign released a desperate memo on Sunday with a warning that they need to raise $2 million soon, or his staff will have to work for free.
"Without a fundraising surge to close out this quarter, we do not see a legitimate long-term path forward," Booker campaign manager Addisu Demissie revealed. "The next 10 days will determine whether Cory Booker can stay in this race."