Trump Thumps Sanders in Head-to-Head Matchup

President Trump would KO Democrat front-runner Bernie Sanders if the 2020 presidential election were held today.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds Trump earning 50% support among Likely U.S. Voters to Sanders’ 43%. Seven percent (7%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

The incumbent president wins 84% of the Republican vote and leads 49% to 39% among voters not affiliated with either major party. Sanders captures 75% of Democrats, but nearly one-in-four Democratic voters (22%) opt for Trump instead.

Senior Democrats including many of Sanders’ opponents for the presidential nomination argue that his socialist views are too radical for a general election. With Sanders’ views getting a wider airing in recent days due to his front-runner status, these new findings suggest that’s true. Just two weeks ago, 51% of all voters considered it likely that any of the announced Democratic candidates could defeat Trump in the upcoming election.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted February 24-25, 2020 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

In a survey earlier this month, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg had a narrow lead over Joe Biden among Democrats nationally in the race to be their party’s 2020 presidential nominee, but Biden and Sanders were the candidates seen as most likely to be nominated. This was prior to Bloomberg’s disastrous debate debut and Biden’s continued poor showing. Rasmussen Reports will update these findings early next week.

Trump has a double-digit lead over Sanders among men, but the two are tied among women voters. The president leads among voters in all age groups.

Sanders picks up 60% of blacks. Trump leads among whites 54% to 39% and edges Sanders 48% to 44% among other minority voters.

Seventy-four percent (74%) of voters who share a Very Favorable opinion of socialism prefer Sanders. Among voters with a Very Unfavorable view of socialism, 88% choose Trump.

Democrats are far less convinced than Republicans and unaffiliated voters that a free-market system is superior to a socialist one and are much more willing to vote for a socialist candidate.Those under 40 are a lot more responsive to the siren call of socialism than older voters are.

But support has fallen for Medicare for all, Sanders' centerpiece issue, as opponents detail the staggering likely cost to taxpayers. Few voters are willing to spend much, if anything, to make Medicare for all a reality.

With 78-year-old Sanders’ surge to the lead in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, questions are being raised about his health, especially following a heart attack several months ago. A sizable majority of voters says a candidate’s health is an important voting issue, and most think major presidential candidates should make their medical records public.

Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.

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