BOSTON (CN) - Democratic presidential candidates Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden have taken the lead in New Hampshire, with the South Bend mayor holding a 1-point advantage on the former vice president, according to a Wednesday poll.
Buttigieg scored 18% of likely voters to Biden's 17%. Meanwhile Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders held onto his strong position at 15% with Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren at 12%.
The poll, which WBUR conducted in conjunction with Mass Inc. from Dec. 3 to 8, included 442 respondents and has a 4.7% margin of error.
It shows that Buttigieg is officially a contender in New Hampshire where Sanders and Warren have held strong leads in previous months. The poll also shows that 12% of respondents are still undecided.
Meanwhile in Iowa, Biden is narrowly holding a lead on Sanders, 23%-22% with Buttigieg in third at 18%, following by Warren at 12%.
The Wednesday results from WHDH 7 News/Emerson College Iowa come from a poll of 325 Democratic Caucus Voters between Dec. 8-10. This poll has a 5.4% margin of error.
Since Emerson's last Iowa poll in October, Biden's support remained level, while Warren, who was tied in first, lost ground to Sanders.
Nationally, Biden still holds a solid lead, with 29% of the support from likely Democratic voters, according to a Dec. 10 poll from Quinnipiac University. Sanders is in second with 17% to Warren's 15%, while Buttigieg has 9%.
The Iowa Democratic caucus will take place on Feb. 3. Four years ago, that race was split between Hillary Clinton and Sanders.
New Hampshire will hold 2020's first official presidential primary on Feb. 11. In 2016, the Granite State went to Sanders with 60.2% of the vote to Hillary Clinton's 37.7%.
Although the poll showed gains for the Buttigieg campaign, it was conducted before the mayor’s Dec. 10 disclosure of clients during his time working for McKinsey as a corporate consultant.
In a Medium.com post, Buttigieg disclosed a four-year time period during which he advised Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Best Buy, the Department of Defense in the Middle East, a Canadian grocery chain and two environmental lobby groups.
The disclosure came after weeks of scrutiny over Buttigieg’s claims that he could not reveal his former clients due to a nondisclosure agreement.
“Now, voters can see for themselves that my work amounted to mostly research and analysis,” Buttigieg wrote via Medium.com. “They can also see that I value both transparency and keeping my word. Neither of these qualities are something we see coming out of Washington, especially from this White House. It’s time for that to change.”
The poll covered the Democratic candidates, the impeachment of President Donald Trump and the president's immigration policy. Of those responding, 52% identified as Democrat while 48% identified as independent or unenrolled.
Another finding of the poll was that 80% of respondents supported the Democrats' impeachment efforts in the House. Just over two-thirds of the respondents believe that Trump should be removed from office.
In general the respondents said they believed that immigration has had more of a positive than negative effect on the country, 47%-27%. Over half of the respondents agreed that immigration has had little to no affect on them personally.
A large majority disapproved with the Trump administration's treatment of immigrants that cross the country's southern border, as well as undocumented immigrants already here, at 81% and 79%, respectively.
The poll's racial demographics, which were almost the same as the state's, showed 93% were white.
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