Supporters of presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg are nearly equally split on who’d they’d prefer to vote for without him in the race — but his endorsement of Joe Biden could sway many of them to get behind the former vice president, recent polling reveals.
The Morning Consult survey released Sunday found that 22 percent of Buttigieg backers identified Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders as their second choice, 19 percent each preferred Biden and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and 17 percent favored former three-term New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg.
The dispersal of Buttigieg’s support could boost each candidates’ national support by 2 percent. The survey queried 13,428 Democrats from Feb. 23-27.
But a prior Morning Consult poll conducted in January revealed that a Buttigieg endorsement could have an enormous impact with his backers.
Sixty-three percent of Buttigieg fans said they would back Biden or Elizabeth Warren if the former South Bend mayor were to endorse either of his Democratic Party presidential primary rivals.
Meanwhile 52 percent said they would support Bloomberg if Buttigieg endorsed the billionaire’s late entry into the race and 49 percent would gravitate toward Sanders if Buttigieg did so.
Buttigieg exits the race on a high note with strong popularity among Democratic voters across the country.
A largely unknown quantity before launching his campaign for the White House, 57 percent of Democrats said they have a favorable view of him, while just 22 percent have unfavorable views. Eight percent of respondents said they never heard of him with the rest having no opinion.
Another candidate, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, also dropped out of the race and is throwing her support behind Biden.




