With the 2018 midterms in the rearview mirror, several Democrats are gearing up for the 2020 presidential contest. But so far, no Democrat has attracted broad support from the party’s base, according to a new Hill.TV American Barometer poll.
The survey, conducted among 680 registered voters who identified themselves as Democrats or independents, found that “none of the above” was the most popular choice among potential 2020 challengers to President Trump.
Thirty percent of the sample said they would prefer that “none of the above” become the Democratic nominee when asked to choose among former Vice President Joe Biden, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D), Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I), New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker (D), California Sen. Kamala Harris (D), former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Twenty-five percent of respondents said Biden would be their preferred nominee. Sanders, who ran in the Democratic presidential primary in 2016, came in second with 18 percent.
Twelve percent of the independents and Democrats surveyed picked Clinton, Sanders’s one-time presidential rival, who signaled a willingness to run again, saying in an October interviewer that she would still “like to be president.”
Other candidates attracted even less support. Harris, Bloomberg and Warren were each the top choice for just 4 percent of respondents.
Warren had been regarded by some progressive advocates as a strong candidate, but she may have lost some support after provoking controversy by releasing a DNA test to address persistent questions about her claims of Native American heritage. A Morning Consult/Politico poll from October found that just 34 percent of Democratic respondents believed Warren’s actions were “appropriate.”
The American Barometer survey was conducted on Nov. 5-6 among 680 registered voters by the HarrisX polling company. The sampling margin of error is 3.76 percentage points.
— Matthew Sheffield
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