Poll Average 2016: Sanders, Not Clinton, Would Beat Trump In Landslide General Election

A startling new polling average released on Thursday predicted that Senator Bernie Sanders would win a landslide victory against Republican front-runner Donald Trump in the general election for President of the United States.

In the RealClearPolitics polling number average, Sanders received 54.7 percent of the average vote, with Trump receiving 37.2 percent, a whopping 17.5 percentage points for Sanders over Trump.

The Hill compiled the numbers for all the polling results for March.

• Fox News: Sanders leads Trump by 14 points
• Bloomberg: Sanders leads Trump by 24 points
• Quinnipiac University: Sanders leads Trump by 14 points
• CBS/The New York Times: Sanders leads Trump by 15 points
• CNN/ORC: Sanders leads Trump by 20 points
• NBC News/The Wall Street Journal: Sanders leads Trump by 18 points

While it looks like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her counterpart Republican front-runner Donald Trump have a strong lead in winning their respective parties’ nominations, this poll indicates that Sanders would perform much better than Clinton in a general election — the lowest margin still has him defeating Trump by a whopping 14 points.

These polls have blockbuster implications: if these numbers became a reality in November, they would likely return control of both the Senate and House to the Democrats. This is because the effect of a Democrat winning a presidential election by 14 points would be enormous, and the party could ride the winning candidate’s coattails right into control of Congress with little effort.

The year 2016 has been an outsider’s year, with businessman Donald Trump being the longtime Republican front-runner and the Sanders campaign posing a very serious challenge to the hegemony of Hillary Clinton. These results also come amid speculation of whether Clinton or Sanders will end up the nominee after a series of Clinton victories, and discussion of what damage a Trump nomination would potentially do to the GOP.

The Hill accused U.S. media outlets of virtually ignoring the Sanders campaign in favor of continual coverage of Trump.

“Note how rarely the major media, in their obsessive coverage of Trump, gives anywhere near equal attention to the Sanders campaign and very rarely discuss the humongous lead that Sanders has over Trump in polling.”

The RealClearPolitics poll is not the first to show these results for Sanders. A Quinnipiac University survey also found recently that while Clinton and Trump still lead in delegates and votes, the tables were turned in a hypothetical general election.

In this survey, Sanders would win a double-digit lead in a match against Trump, beating him 52 percent to 38 percent, and against Senator Ted Cruz (50 to 39 percent). Hillary Clinton was shown beating both Trump and Cruz as well, but by a smaller margin, beating Trump 46 percent to 40, and Cruz 45 to 42 percent.

Surprisingly, Republican underdog Governor John Kasich was also shown having a lead over both Clinton and Sanders in the general election, defeating Clinton 47 to 39 percent, and beating Sanders by a razor-thing margin of 45 to 44 percent. Kasich has thus far lost every GOP primary except in his home state of Ohio.

“Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton may have the overall leads among primary voters, but there is not a lot of love in the room as a big percentage of Americans say of the front-runners they could take ’em or leave ’em,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, to the International Business Times. “Though short on delegates and short on time, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Gov. John Kasich can hang their hats on the fact that if folks went to the polls today, they’d fare better than the other candidates.”

In primary votes on Tuesday, Trump and Clinton both won Arizona, while Sanders won Idaho and Utah. Cruz won in Utah for the Republicans, and both Clinton and Trump boast formidable leads in delegate counts.

[Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images]