NASHUA – Whether voters want to call them the “Killer B’s,” “Triple B,” or just three white guys, Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Beto O’Rourke are leading the national race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, according to polling data released Thursday by Quinnipiac University.

The national results differ slightly from the most recent poll that was specific to New Hampshire. That survey placed Sanders first, Biden second and California’s Kamala Harris third.

“Hungry for a candidate to take on President Donald Trump, Democrats and Democratic leaners put the three B’s, Biden, Bernie and Beto, at the top in a race where age, race and gender take a back seat to electability and shared views,” Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac poll, said.

Quinnipiac surveyed 559 Democrats or those who lean Democratic from March 21-25 with live interviews via both traditional landline phones and cellphones. The poll allows a margin error of 5 percentage points.

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The Question and the Results

Quinnipiac officials said surveyors asked: “If the Democratic primary for president were being held today, and the candidates were: Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Beto O’Rourke, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, Julian Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, Jay Inslee, John Hickenlooper, John Delaney, Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang, and Marianne Williamson, for whom would you vote?”

Biden, the former vice president who has yet to formally declare his candidacy, received 29 percent of the vote. Biden represented Delaware in the U.S. Senate from 1973 to 2009, at which time he resigned to serve as VP for President Barack Obama through January 2017.

Coming in second was Sanders, the independent U.S. senator from Vermont, with 19 percent. Sanders won the 2016 New Hampshire Democratic primary before going on to finish a strong second to eventual party presidential nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, that year.

Newcomer O’Rourke became a national hero for Democrats by almost winning a U.S. Senate seat in Texas last year. The former member of Congress drew large and enthusiastic crowds to multiple campaign events in New Hampshire last week.

Known in many circles as simply “Beto,” O’Rourke received 12 percent of the vote in Quinnipiac’s national poll.

The only other option to draw more than 4 percent of the vote in this poll was U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., who checked in with 8 percent. Harris seems to have some advantages in the race, the most notable being that delegate-rich California is slated to play a much larger role in this primary as compared to prior elections because it will be about three months earlier.

Next, both U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg drew 4 percent of the support.

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., each collected 2 percent of the vote.

Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper received 1 percent of the vote, as did former U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro of Texas.

Candidates included in the Quinnipiac poll but failing to register at least 1 percent included: U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, current Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, former Maryland Congressman John Delaney, New York businessman Andrew Yang and California author Marianne Williamson.

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