Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden in dead heat days before Iowa caucuses

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former veep Joe Biden are in a dead heat days before Monday’s key Iowa caucuses, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal national poll.

Sanders garnered 27 percent of those polled while Biden was close behind at 26 percent.

Sanders’ single-point advantage, which is well within the poll’s plus or minus 4.74 percentage point margin of error, was the first time he came out on top in the survey.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren was the only other Democrat registering in double digits, at 15 percent, while former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg rose to fourth place, at 9 percent.

Former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg got 7 percent support in the poll; Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar won 5 percent, and businessman Andrew Yang garnered 4 percent. No other candidate has 3 percent support or more.

The new survey marks a six-point gain for Sanders since last month’s NBC/WSJ poll, when Biden led with 28 percent, Sanders was at 21 percent, Warren at 18 percent and Bloomberg at 4 percent.

Sanders’ biggest advantage could be the loyalty of his backers, 60 percent of whom said they would definitely vote for him, while 48 percent say the same about Biden.

“Four years ago, Republicans thought it was unfathomable at this stage that Donald Trump could be the party’s nominee,” said Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducted the survey along with Republican pollster Bill McInturff.

“The Democrats should not make that mistake. Bernie Sanders is formidable and that’s what we’ve learned in this survey,” he told the news organizations.