Joe Biden is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, but he is struggling to energize his party’s base as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo outshines him.
A nationwide poll found that 56% of likely Democratic voters said that they would like Cuomo to be the Democratic presidential nominee rather than Biden, while 44% said that the former vice president should be the nominee.
Club for Growth PAC, a conservative group that generally supports Republicans, sponsored that poll, and WPA Intelligence conducted it. The online survey was conducted among 1,000 likely voters from April 3-6, and the results for the Democratic sample have a margin of error of plus or minus 4.8%.
Support for Cuomo rather than Biden was highest among voters who were 35 or younger, 66% of whom picked the New York governor over Biden.
As Biden is forced to suspend normal campaign operations during the coronavirus pandemic, Cuomo has gained notoriety and admiration by holding daily press briefings about the outbreak in New York City, the metropolitan area hardest hit in the pandemic.
The poll found that among all voters, 54% approve and 20% disapprove of Cuomo’s coronavirus response, while 32% approve and 35% disapprove of Biden’s coronavirus response.
There is no evidence that party insiders are planning to make Cuomo a replacement to Biden as the party’s presumptive nominee. The New York governor has repeatedly said that he does not want to run for president, and party rules make it nearly impossible for Cuomo to be the nominee at this point.
