Donald Trump has talked about easily winning a second term, but the reality does not quite seem so straightforward.
A new poll carried out by NBC/ Wall Street Journal shows that Americans would choose any Democrat over Trump in the 2020 presidential race. When one considers the litany of prominent Democrats who have already joined the Democratic field — with Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris all running — the chances for Trump to repeat 2016 become slimmer.
According to the poll, 48 percent of Americans would vote for a generic Democrat over Trump. Forty-one percent of Americans would vote for the incumbent president. Although there is a narrowing of the divide compared to the last two years, CNBC maintains that both of the previous two presidents — Barack Obama and George W. Bush before that — had better numbers than Trump.
To find an incumbent president trailing in the polls at this juncture, you have to go all the way back to Bill Clinton, but even his numbers were slightly better than Trump’s.
But it is not all gloom and doom for the president. As reported, Donald Trump’s approval rating has risen from 43 percent to 46 percent since the end of the government shutdown.
New WSJ/NBC poll on Trump re-election prospects: 41% say they’ll vote for him, 48% say they’ll vote for a Democrat. pic.twitter.com/ov8pHzWptW
— Byron York (@ByronYork) March 3, 2019
Trump to CPAC on Dems:
“so far out of the mainstream”
Americans to NBC/WSJ poll:
—63% say GOP out of mainstream on climate change, 54% on abortion, 52% on health care, 50% on immigration —51% or more say Dems are in the mainstream on each issue https://t.co/ABIiJe6Dr2
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) March 3, 2019
The problem area for Trump is his dwindling support among independents, women, and voters under 50. College-educated white women support a Democratic candidate over Trump by 26 percentage points, while the divide is even starker among Hispanic voters — standing at a colossal 40 percentage points. It also seems like Trump’s decision to declare a national emergency to fund the wall at the southern border did not quite strike the chord among voters, with six-in-ten Americans saying they disapprove of the president’s decision.
But it is Trump’s popularity among Republicans where he scores most, with 86 percent of conservative voters approving his first two years in the job. It is an area which the president appears intent on exploiting, with Trump planning to hold more events to fundraise among his core group of supporters in the coming months.
The approval for Trump among Republicans is a far cry from the picture the liberal media seems to paint, where GOP members are often seen thrashing Trump for his policies. Observers say as long as Trump continues to maintain the economic numbers, his rivals have a tough race on their hands.
“As long as these economic numbers look like this, that always keeps an incumbent president in the race,” Bill McInturff, a GOP pollster, told NBC News .
Even so, the 2020 race will be an uphill task for Donald Trump, who will have to dig deep within his party and his core group of supporters to emerge victorious again. By all accounts, it already seems like it’s going to be a very tight race.
