Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont lead the field of prospective and declared 2020 Democratic presidential candidates in an Iowa Poll of voters likely to participate in the first nominating contest 11 months from now.
Biden, who is still trying to decide whether he wants to run for a third time, has the support of 27 percent of likely participants in the Iowa caucuses. He's closely followed by Sanders, who unsuccessfully ran for the nomination against Hillary Clinton in 2016, at 25 percent.
The early polling, sponsored by the Des Moines Register, CNN and Mediacom, is as much about name recognition as anything. Still, it shows that lesser-known candidates have considerable work to do if they want to compete with Biden and Sanders.