Do Democrats Want A Candidate Who Shares Their Values Or Can Beat Trump Voters Are Split
Democratic voters are evenly split on whether they care more about the 2020 candidates policies or whether those candidates beat President Donald Trump, according to a poll from the PBS NewsHour, NPR and Marist.
Forty-seven percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters said they preferred to have a Democratic nominee in 2020 who shares their positions on most issues. A nearly identical number, 46 percent, said it they thought it was better for the party to nominate a candidate who has the best chance of beating President Donald Trump.
With a field of more than 20 candidates, the question of electability has dominated the early stages of the race for the 2020 Democratic nomination.
Candidates with higher name recognition, like former Vice President Joe Biden, are leading the polls, and early polling shows Biden would also have the biggest advantage in a head-to-head matchup with Trump. Biden has focused his campaign on appealing to the middle class, a group that helped spur Trump to victory in 2016.
But data from the last three decades of presidential elections shows the odds are almost always against candidates who have already run for president like Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. And other candidates are challenging the idea that the characteristics that once guaranteed a good shot at the Oval Office can still appeal to a Democratic base that is becoming more progressive and diverse. y.
You have to blend them both, he said.
Biden Shows Sizable Lead Among Those Polled
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Biden shows sizable lead among those polled
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Biden shows sizable lead among those polled
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NEEDHAM, Mass.
With African American voters expected to be key in determining who wins the Democratic presidential nomination, an exclusive UMass Amherst/WCVB poll finds that former Vice President Joe Biden is the favorite among African American voters in Super Tuesday states.
Leaders
In the poll of 500 registered, likely Democratic African American voters living in the 14 states, 33% would back Biden if their states primary were held today. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders received 23%, followed by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at 15% and Massachusetts Sen. Elizbeth Warren at 14%.
Former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and businessman Tom Steyer each received 2%, while zero percent said they would vote for Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. Nine percent of the respondents said they did not know who they would vote for or chose another candidate.
When asked if there was a chance they might vote for someone else, 54% said yes.
Issues driving voters
Taking a deeper look at the results, Biden received the most support from both men and women, across all education levels, across all income levels and across all but one age group ages 18 to 29. That group supported Sanders.
From Opinion: The Trickiness Of Electability
In this new weekly feature, our colleagues from The New York Timess Opinion section will share expert analysis and perspectives from across the political spectrum. In todays installment, theres more to read about why electability is so unpredictable.
There is a home base that all the conversation about the Democratic presidential primary comes back to in the end: Primary voters prioritize, above all, someone who can defeat President Trump.
In any election that features an incumbent president, the main goal of the out-of-power party is to nominate a candidate well-suited to defeating the incumbent. Thats why both Republican Party elites and less enthusiastic conservative voters got behind Mitt Romney after a series of polls in 2011 showed he was the only Republican beating President Barack Obama in head-to-head matchups.
This year, Democrats desire to replace the incumbent has reached a fever pitch, arguably higher than its ever been for either party. But paradigm-shifting presidents have complicated the idea of electability, as Adam Jentleson, a former deputy chief of staff for Senator Harry Reid, pointed out this week in an Op-Ed.
Mr. Obama won his first election despite being a black man who had admitted to using cocaine, who was caught on tape calling working-class whites bitter people who cling to guns and religion, and who sat in the pews with a pastor who declared, God damn America, Mr. Jentleson said.
Talmon Joseph Smith
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A Democrat Who Can Beat Trump
Why Amy Klobuchar still has a chance.
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Opinion Columnist
If youre like a lot of Democrats, you worry that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are too liberal or at least that other voters think so. Youre also not buying the Pete Buttigieg hype. And you get nervous every time Joe Biden opens his mouth.
So where are you supposed to find a comfortably electable, qualified candidate who wont turn 80 while in office?
Senator Amy Klobuchar has become an answer to that question in the final month before voting begins. She has outlasted more than a dozen other candidates and has two big strengths: A savvy understanding of how to campaign against President Trump and a track record of winning the sorts of swing voters Democrats will likely need this year.
Klobuchar, to be sure, is not a finished product as a presidential candidate. Too often, she sounds like a senator speaking in legislative to-do lists rather than a future president who can inspire voters. That tendency along with too much needling of other candidates, instead of focusing on her own message was evident in the most recent debate.
In that way, she reminds me of another Midwestern senator who once seemed too ordinary to be president: Harry Truman. In the summer of 1944, an even more perilous time for global democracy than now, Democratic Party grandees chose Truman as vice president with the belief that he would soon be president, given Franklin Roosevelts declining health.
The Reason Sanders Appears Equally Electable
These Bernie or bust voters that come off the sidelines for Sanders in our survey are almost entirely limited to one group: Democrats and independents under age 35. These voters are about 11 percentage points more likely to say they would vote for Democrats if Sanders is nominated and almost all of them say they would not vote at all or vote third party if hes not on the ballot.
However, the Bernie or bust phenomenon appears almost entirely limited to left-leaning young people, who are usually a small share of the overall electorate. This stands in contrast to many theories of Sanderss electoral appeal: For example, whites without a college degree a demographic some speculate Sanders could win over are actually more likely to say they will vote for Trump against Sanders than against the other Democrats. The same is true of the rest of the electorate, except left-leaning young people.
This finding in our data mirrors many other surveys: Morning Consult finds dramatic increases in young Americans stated turnout intentions when asked how they would vote in matchups between Sanders and Trump.
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Republican Candidate Can’t Answer If He Wants Trump Campaigning In His State
Bernie Sanders, the clear front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination after his commanding victory in Nevada on Saturday, often says the principal reason he can beat President Donald Trump in a general election is that he will massively increase voter turnout.
Can Harris Beat Trump In 2024
Harris could be lining herself up with a similar story as Hillary Clinton, who has run for president twice in the past the second time she won the majority vote against Trump but failed to take the electoral vote.
Unlike Clinton, however, the nation is aware of the dangers of having a president like Trump, which DeSantis has often been compared to.
Considering Bidens win over Trump was very convincing, its unlikely that well see another Trump threat.
Hopefully following that trend, the election of DeSantis would be a danger to this country that the Democrats would try their best to avoid.
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Us Election : Meet The Democratic Candidates Vying To Take On Trump
Election season is getting under way and the race to become the Democratic challenger to Donald Trump is hotting up.
Last summer, there were nearly 30 serious candidates vying for the attention of the party’s supporters, but only two are still standing.
Here’s a brief guide to who they are, with some analysis on each of them from the BBC’s Anthony Zurcher.
Who are they? What are their key issues? What’s their secret weapon against President Trump? We’ve got it all covered.
Can Kamala Harris Win Against Ron Desantis Or Donald Trump In The 2024 Presidential Election
Harris has already made history as the first female vice president and could do the same as the first female president.
But fighting off the cult-like popularity of DeSantis and Trump supporters may be too much for Harris to take on.
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The Proof Is In The Polling
This research suggests, then, that Mr Biden could perform better than his competitors against Mr Trump. He is more moderate than Mr Sanders, so both more likely to attract swing voters and less likely to motivate Republicans to vote against him. His strength with both black and racially conservative white voters could make a big difference in swing states. Recent polling from the New York Times and Siena College suggests that 6% of the electorate would vote for Mr Bidenbut not for Elizabeth Warrenagainst Mr Trump.
His advantage is evident in polls. According to The Economists analysis of publicly released polling data, Mr Biden performs better against Mr Trump than his competitors, nationwide and in swing states. Although polls of the general election conducted this early before a contest are not perfect, they are still helpful.
Mr Biden is not faultless. He is uninspiring on the stump and in debates. His Washington ties may inspire resentment from voters sceptical of elites. His candidacy would also represent a safety-first strategy for the Democrats at a time when many in the party desperately want to push a much more progressive economic, racial and social agenda. Yet for all that he still appears to be the Democrats best option in a contest against Mr Trump.
Dig deeper:Sign up and subscribe to Checks and Balance, our new newsletter and podcast on American politics
A Stable Race Is Suddenly Not
For the past year, the race orbited reliably around Joe Biden. He was in a tier by himself. Candidates in the tier below him traded positions and some dropped out, but nothing about the fundamental structure of the race changed. Mr. Biden may still bounce back, but the force he exerted on the race appears to be a thing of the past.
- Zachary D. Carter asks why some moderate Democrats are attacking Bidens economic plan, despite it representing centrism taken seriously.
- Michelle Cottle surveys the Republican opposition thats shaping up for 2022 and finds many candidates embracing the fiction that the election was stolen.
- Thomas B. Edsall explores new research on whether the Democratic Party could find more success focusing on race or on class when trying to build support.
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It Also Shows How Perceptions Of Electability Deviate From Reality
On the morning of July 25 of last year, President Trump woke up and turned on Fox News, as he often does. Among other things, the network was reporting on a new poll it had conducted. In it, Trump trailed former vice president Joe Biden by 10 points. A few months later, when the same poll showed support for impeaching him, Trump would complain publicly repeatedly about the networks polling team. That day in July, though, he took a different tack, asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a phone call to launch an investigation into Biden.
Fox News released another poll Thursday evening that includes at least one piece of good news for Trump. More than half of respondents, 56 percent, think that Trump is on track for reelection. Digging into the numbers a little deeper, though, we see that theres a lot that might give Trump pause as well and some strong hints that the focus on electability by Democratic primary voters is a flawed basis for casting a ballot.
Views of how likely it is that candidates for the Democratic Partys nomination can beat Trump in November vary widely among voters in the partys primaries. Sen. Bernie Sanders , who leads the primary field in this poll, is also seen as the candidate with the best chance to win the general election. Biden and former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg trail a bit, with more than half of Democrats saying that they could win.
Update: And lo
Cracks In The Biden Foundation
So far, polling shows that Biden has benefited the most from the focus on electability. In a national mid-June Monmouth University poll, Biden significantly led the field when likely Democratic primary voters were asked to rank each candidates chance, on a 1-10 scale, of beating Trump. Fifty-nine percent of Democratic voters ranked Bidens chance of beating Trump in the three highest categories on that scale .
No one else finished that close: 39% ranked Sanders in the top three categories, 32% Warren, 24% Harris and just 17% South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg. As usual in this years polls of Democratic voters, Bidens advantage on electability in that survey was especially pronounced with older voters.
But in last weeks debate Biden delivered a performance almost universally regarded as unsteady, when he was challenged most forcefully by Harris on his record on school busing during the 1970s but also by Sen. Michael Bennet on the deal he cut in 2012 with Republican Mitch McConnell during the fiscal cliff triggered by the expiration of the tax cuts that passed under President George W. Bush.
Assuming Biden is able to get his act together, he has a real base , I believe, grounded in historical dynamics that make it very hard for Harris to make further gains, Greenberg said. At some point Biden is going to push back, maybe using the President , by saying Im carrying on his legacy.
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