It’s way too soon after the trauma of last year’s election. but Politico and Morning Consult are unafraid to publish the first head-to-head national 2020 presidential poll that I’m aware of. The survey compares President Trump to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
Two important findings here:
A Morning Consult/POLITICO national survey conducted Feb. 9 and Feb. 10 found that Trump leads the Massachusetts Democrat 42 percent to 36 percent in a hypothetical 2020 contest.
When asked to choose between a generic Democratic candidate and the Republican incumbent, voters chose the Democrat over Trump, 43 percent to 35 percent. About a quarter (23 percent) said they had no opinion on the 2020 contest.
Another finding:
Before you call this good news for Trump, let me say that my guess is Warren’s would poll better with better name recognition. Sorry, but among those not obsessed with politics, she exactly isn’t a household name.This poll of nearly 1,800 registered voters was taken in the days after Republican senators voted to punish Warren for violating Senate rules. So she’d gotten as much exposure by then as she has at any time so far. Yet one-third of Americans — and nearly one-third of Democrats — either haven’t heard of Warren or don’t know enough to form an opinion.
What’s more, Trump’s number against Warren, at 42 percent, is still dismal for an incumbent, and if we were late in the election season it would usually signify a coming loss.
But then, there’s another side to this too. We just learned in November that perhaps it’s a mistake to put too much faith in Trump’s numbers. He won on Election Day with 60 percent unfavorability, according to the exit polls.
And there’s another thing: This exact same poll finds that Trump has net positive job approval — 49 percent approve (yes, you read that right) and 45 disapprove of the job he’s doing so far. That’s pretty solid, compared to most other polls and compared to what you might expect of a president who’s polling at only 35 percent against a generic opponent.
The larger lesson, which hopefully we all learned in November, is not to put too much stock in polls, and certainly not at this point.
