USA TODAY International Edition
Poll: 65% of voters expect Trump to win reelection
Yet a race against Dem candidates is a toss- up
Nearly two- thirds of voters think President Donald Trump will be reelected in November, a CBS News poll released Sunday found.
Though the survey found that Trump will face a tight race with any of the likely Democratic nominees, 31% of registered voters said the president will definitely win a second term, and 34% said he probably will, for a total of 65% expecting him to be reelected. A total of 35% disagreed; 23% said he “probably will not” win, and 12% said he would “definitely not” win.
Republicans were overwhelmingly certain of Trump’s victory: 9 in 10 predicted reelection. More than a third of Democrats agreed he likely would win.
But hypothetical head- to- head matchups indicate Trump’s chance of winning against the top six Democratic candidates is a coin toss.
The national poll found Trump narrowly trailing Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont ( 44%- 47%), former Vice President Joe Biden ( 45%- 47%) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts ( 45%- 46%). But he was tied with former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg ( 44% each) and narrowly ahead of Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota ( 45%- 44%) and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg ( 45%- 42%).
Opinions on the race appear to be firmly set for most voters. Sixty- three percent said their minds are made up no matter who the Democratic nominee ends up being, and 61% said they wouldn’t change their position no matter what Trump does in the next year.
In the battle for the nomination to take on Trump, Sanders – who won decisively in Nevada’s caucuses on Saturday – was the top choice of 28% of likely Democratic voters. Next was Warren at 19%, followed by Biden at 17%, Bloomberg at 13%, Buttigieg at 10% and Klobuchar at 5%. Only 12% of those voters said it was likely they would change their minds before casting their ballot, though 46% said it was a possibility.
After Sanders – a self- described democratic socialist – won in Nevada, Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale said “there is no denying that Big Government Socialism dominated.” And on Sunday, Marc Short, the chief of staff for Vice President Mike Pence, told Fox News that the administration “would look forward” to a general- election race against Sanders.
“I think it would show a stark contrast between a president who’s had an employment rate of 3.5%, created 7 million jobs, versus a candidate who I think continues to embrace socialism,” Short said on “Fox News Sunday.”
But the CBS News poll found that most voters believe Sanders is the Democratic candidate with the best chance to defeat Trump, with 27% saying he would “probably” win against the incumbent president and 30% saying he “maybe” could win. Forty- two percent described him as a long shot, which was the lowest number among the six candidates in the poll.
By comparison, 26% said Biden would “probably” win, 29% thought he could “maybe” win and 45% thought he was a long shot. Bloomberg had the third- best numbers in the field, with 20% saying he would “probably” win, 32% saying maybe and 48% calling him a long shot.
Trump touted the country’s economic health as a reason he deserves four more years in office, and 67% of voters said they feel the economy is in good shape ( 33% said “very good and 34% said “fairly good.” Last week, a Gallup poll found 61% of Americans felt they were better off financially than three years ago.
The poll was conducted online Feb. 20- 22 by YouGov. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.2 percentage points.