How Do Biden, O’Rourke, And Sanders Stack Up To Trump? A New Poll Has The Answers
With the 2018 midterms over and 2018 drawing to a close, political pundits and observers across the country are setting their sights on who will be running for president in less than two years’ time.
Indeed, the first-in-the-nation Iowa Caucuses, which will be the first nomination elections in the country, will occur in just 404 days from now.
Republicans are likely to re-nominate current President Donald Trump to run for their ticket once again, so many observers are looking at Democrats to see who they might run. A poll conducted jointly by news organization the Hill and HarrisX, a poll company, took a look at three Democrats considering their next moves.
The poll asked respondents who they would vote for in three hypothetical head-to-head matchups between Trump and Democrats Joe Biden, Beto O’Rourke, and independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders. Of those three, Biden fares the best, while O’Rourke does the worst, suggesting to some that name recognition above all else may play a role in who wins the presidency in 2020, according to reporting from the Hill.
“It doesn’t surprise me that Biden runs relatively well against Trump,” said Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who analyzed the outcome of the polling results. “He’s got 100 percent name recognition, he’s a likable guy. I think he’d play well in different areas of the country that the Democrats haven’t done so well in.”
Joe Biden's policy agenda is laser-focused on helping workers and the middle class. https://t.co/zKCRAMsUri
— Vox (@voxdotcom) December 26, 2018
In the hypothetical matchup between the former vice president and the current president, Biden outperforms Trump, with Biden receiving the endorsement of 42 percent of respondents compared to 36 percent for the former businessman-turned-politician.
O’Rourke doesn’t do as well. He received 30 percent of the vote in the poll against Trump, who garnered 37 percent. Sanders and Trump were in a statistical tie, with the former receiving 38 percent and the latter getting 37 percent.
None of the individuals in the poll, besides Trump, have officially declared themselves candidates for office as of yet, although all three are definitely considering it. Still, polling elsewhere suggests that Democrats desire someone completely different, opening up prospects for a “dark horse” candidate to come in and sweep the entire thing up from any perceived front-runner.
Fifty-nine percent of respondents in a USA Today/Suffolk University poll said they’d be “excited” for a new face to run for office, compared to 53 percent that said they’d be excited for Biden to run. Just 11 percent said they wouldn’t be excited by a new contender, according to reporting from USA Today.
Of course, it’s still way too early to know anything for sure at this point, and a year from now a lot could change. Still, with the next big election being the vote for president, speculators and political observers just can’t help but take a peek at these numbers and wonder, “what if” at them whenever they appear.
