Former Vice President Joe Biden is the only potential presidential candidate who could beat President Trump in next year’s general election, according to a new poll of Iowa voters.
In a direct match-up with Trump, Biden would prevail in 2020 with 51 percent of the vote to the president’s 49 percent, Emerson College found in a survey released on Saturday. Other contenders eyeing the Democratic nomination, including Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Kamala Harris, D-Calif., as well as former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, earned enough support to fall within the research’s margin of error.
Sunday marks one year until the 2020 Iowa primary caucuses. Ahead of the crucial first-in-the-nation vote, Emerson College found Biden led the Democratic field with almost 30 percent of the vote from Democrats planning to take part in the nominating process. That figure represents a 10-point advantage on Harris and Sanders, and nearly 20-points advantage over Warren.
The study found that Trump would trounce former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a possible Republican primary challenger, in a head-to-head-match-up in Iowa: 90 percent to 10 percent. The poll also suggests a third-party independent candidate like former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz would be a spoiler for a Democratic contender such as Warren.
The Iowa Emerson College poll surveyed 831 registered voters in the state between Jan. 30 and Feb. 2, via landline telephones and an online panel. The poll’s findings for the entire sample have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. Its results for Democratic caucus-goers is based on a smaller sample size of 260 and is therefore less accurate, with a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percentage points.
