Elizabeth Warren Rises in Presidential Polls, Besting Buttigieg

While former Vice President Joe Biden's entry into the 2020 presidential race has been the big news of late, one of his competitors has been climbing in national polls -- U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

In a Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday, Warren was the preferred candidate of 12 percent of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters, placing her second to Biden, who had 38 percent. It was a substantial move up from a March Quinnipiac poll, in which Warren had just 4 percent support, placing her fifth in the Democratic field, The Hill reports.

A CNN-SSRS poll, which also came out Tuesday, saw Warren at 8 percent, up from 4 percent in its previous poll. Biden led that poll as well, with 39 percent, and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont was second with 15 percent, followed by Warren.

A third poll released Tuesday, from the website Morning Consult, had Warren with the support of 9 percent of respondents, up two percentage points from its March poll and ahead of three candidates she'd previously trailed -- South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke of Texas, and U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris of California.

"Warren garnered some positive attention during her CNN town hall earlier this month, and she has released a slew of policy proposals in recent weeks, including a sweeping plan to reform higher education that would cancel nearly all student loan debt and create universal free public college," The Hill notes. She was also the first Democratic presidential contender to call for the impeachment of Donald Trump due to Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report, which documented several actions by the president that may have constituted obstruction of justice.