Democrat presidential hopeful Joe Biden said the bloated field of two dozen Democrats running for president will be “winnowed out pretty quickly” early next year, the Hill reported.
Noting that there is a 15 percent threshold for Democrat candidates for the Iowa caucuses, Biden said, “It’s going to work its way through relatively quickly for all of us.” The nation’s first presidential forum in Iowa kicks off on February 3, 2020.
Biden, former President Barack Obama’s vice president, has surged far ahead in the Democrat polls since he became a late contestant for the Democrat nomination.
The latest poll finds Biden with a commanding lead. In a recent Hill-HarrisX poll, Biden had a whopping 32-point lead over the next closest candidate, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders — 46 percent to 14 percent. Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg was in third at 8 percent.
With such a commanding lead, Biden said he intends to play nice with his opponents and will not speak ill of them, adding that the Democrat Party does not need rancor right now.
Biden also dismissed the idea that many of the dozens of Democrats vying for the nomination are “unelectable.”
“This idea that … we have a lot of people who aren’t qualified or aren’t electable, come on, give me a break,” Biden told Politico.
Biden, though, continues to be dogged by accusations that he has sexually harassed people for decades and is a violator of people’s personal space.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.