A new Quinnipiac poll finds Joe Biden blowing out President Trump by 13 points in a hypothetical 2020 matchup.
“It’s a long 17 months to Election Day, but Joe Biden is ahead by landslide proportions,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, which conducted the survey.
Indeed, he is. Also, all other Democratic candidates polled, while not doing quite as well as Biden, were still ahead by five to nine points.
But there is a reason why I’m skeptical these numbers would actually be representative of the general election.
According to the poll, Trump would barely edge out Biden among white voters, 47% to 46%.
In 2016, Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 20 points among white voters — and this was not unheard of. Mitt Romney beat the Obama-Biden ticket by 20 points among whites in 2012, and John McCain won whites by 12 points in 2008.
It’s hard to merely chalk Obama’s performance among whites to his being the first black president, either. George W. Bush beat Al Gore by 13 points among whites in 2000, despite Gore being a southern white male Democrat.
But if even if one does take the view that Obama’s race cost him among whites, it would suggest that black candidates in 2020 would have similar results. But Quinnipiac found that Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., would get within eight points of Trump among white voters, and beat him 49% to 41% overall.
Not since 1996, when Bill Clinton came within two points of Bob Dole, has any Democrat come within single digits among whites. It’s just hard to see Harris having the best performance among whites in 24 years running against Trump, who has built his successful electoral career around white identity politics.
To be sure, I’m not trying to spread any sort of conspiracy theory about this Quinnipiac poll. But I question how representative this poll will prove of the actual general election results. More likely, if Democrats win, it will be because of some combination of the nominee boosting performance among minority voters and/or eating into Trump’s softer support among white voters. But they are unlikely to win by cutting into his edge among whites by as much as this poll would indicate.
