The first votes of the 2020 presidential election season will officially get tallied this week when the Iowa caucuses unfold on Monday. With just months to go ahead of the general election and a long list of Democratic presidential primary elections teed up for the meantime, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll has found Trump losing to every leading Democratic presidential primary candidate. Former Vice President Joe Biden has the largest leading margin, finishing with 50 percent of the support compared to Trump’s 44 percent, but Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg all finished ahead of Trump too — although by the end of the list, the margins were slim.
Sanders nabbed 49 percent of the support with 45 percent for Trump, Warren had 48 percent to Trump’s 45 percent, and Buttigieg had just 46 percent while Trump had 45 percent.
The leads for the top couple of candidates — meaning Biden and Sanders — hold when the pool of respondents is narrowed to only include 11 “battleground states” ranging from Florida to Wisconsin. In those states, Biden leads Trump by five percent, with 49 percent of the support compared to 44 percent for Trump, and Sanders nabbed 49 percent of the support compared to 46 percent for Trump. Warren and Buttigieg both lost to Trump by one percent margins — which are similar, it’s worth noting, to the thin real-world margins in some of those battleground states in the 2016 general election. That year, Trump won Michigan by about ten thousand votes out of more than four million that were cast.
This time around, Trump might not get so lucky. As a poignant side note that could help drive some of these outcomes against Trump, the same poll found that majorities of Americans believe that he’s guilty of exactly that which the House Democrats who impeached him have alleged. The impeachment case included charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and 52 percent of respondents said that he’s guilty of the first and about the same portion — 53 percent — said that he’s guilty of the second charge.
Meanwhile, Trump is trailing off with anger at former NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who’s among the candidates for president but lagging behind those frontrunners in the polls.
On Twitter over the weekend, Trump ranted:
‘Mini Mike is now negotiating both to get on the Democrat Primary debate stage, and to have the right to stand on boxes, or a lift, during the debates. This is sometimes done, but really not fair!’
Mini Mike is now negotiating both to get on the Democrat Primary debate stage, and to have the right to stand on boxes, or a lift, during the debates. This is sometimes done, but really not fair!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 2, 2020
The Bloomberg campaign says this claim is false, which adds another notch to the president’s long list of bizarre lies — which he repeated in an interview with Sean Hannity airing this weekend.
He told the host:
‘I just think of little. You know, now he wants a box for the debates to stand on. OK. It’s OK. There’s nothing wrong. You can be short. Why should he get a box to stand on. He wants a box for the debates. Why should he be entitled? Does that mean everyone else gets a box?’
What a bizarrely unhinged tirade.
