If you want President Trump booted out of office in 2020, you may have your pick of the litter.
That’s because a new national poll shows that no fewer than five Democrats would defeat Trump if the election were held today.
According to a new survey from Public Policy Polling (PDF), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and former Vice President Joe Biden are currently the strongest candidates in a hypothetical matchup with Trump.
Voters in the poll chose Biden over Trump 54% to 39% and Sanders over Trump 52% to 39%.
And even though it could never happen, a wide majority of voters surveyed said they’d easily give Barack Obama a third term over Trump, 53% to 40%.
You might be asking why Democrats would vote for Biden or Sanders again since they’ve both already lost Democratic primaries in the past. In fact, Biden has lost two, in 1988 and again in 2008 before Obama picked him for vice president. It turns out they’re actually in good company, as more than a quarter of future presidents lost their first shot at the party’s nomination.
What’s most telling, other than their large margins of victory, is that both Biden and Trump would siphon off more than 10% of voters who said they voted for Trump in 2016, bolstering the argument by many Bernie supporters that he would have won the election had he been the Democratic nominee over Hillary Clinton.
Meanwhile, Trump’s actual 2016 opponent, Clinton, is also reflecting some buyer’s remorse from the electorate, coming out ahead of Trump 49% to 42%. However, the survey was skewed slightly toward Clinton supporters, with 46% saying they voted for her in the actual election, compared to 42% for Trump. Clinton has downplayed any talk of running again, but with any potential Biden or Sanders runs also drawing skepticism, she may want to keep her Iowa calendar open.
However, they aren’t the only ones who could make strong cases for their own White House campaign.
According to the poll, Trump would also lose in potential matchups against three sitting U.S. Democratic senators: Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Kamala Harris, albeit by smaller margins. In those matchups, Warren wins 49-42, Booker comes out ahead 45-40, and Harris edges Trump 41-40.
The one person polled that Trump would stand an even chance of beating? Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who came in at an even 40%-40% against the Donald. Though he hasn’t made any formal announcements, the social media pioneer has been conducting a “listening tour” around the country that bears a resemblance to similar efforts undertaken by previous figures before announcing their own candidacies.
Share images by Gage Skidmore, Petty Officer 1st Class Chad J. McNeeley, USN/Wikimedia Commons.