Following underwhelming primary performances in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, former Vice President Joe Biden revived his campaign with a blowout victory in South Carolina. Biden has been winning delegates across the country since and is all but certain to win the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.
Polls have consistently shown that Biden would be a strong contender against President Donald Trump . The latest Fox News poll, released on Friday, suggests the same. According to the survey, in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, Biden leads Trump by nine points. The former vice president is polling at 49 percent, and the commander-in-chief is at 40 percent. Eleven percent of voters remain undecided, or would rather vote for someone else.
Among voters “extremely interested” in the 2020 presidential election , Biden is polling at 52 and Trump at 43 percent. In battleground states, the former vice president has an eight-point advantage. Crucially, in close counties — where Trump and 2016 Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton were within 10 percentage points — Biden has an advantage of 25 points.
The former vice president has, it seems, managed to build a formidable coalition of liberals, non-white voters, moderates, suburban women, and voters age 65 and over. Among self-described liberals, Biden is polling at 80 and Trump is at 11 percent. Among non-white voters, Biden is at 69 percent and Trump is at 18 percent.
When it comes to self-described moderates, the former vice president has a 29-point advantage over Trump, polling at 53 percent. Biden enjoys the support of 57 percent of suburban women, while Trump is polling at 34 percent. When it comes to voters age 65 and over, Biden is at 57 and Trump at 38 percent.
Trump’s coalition, unsurprisingly, leans more to the right. The president is beating Biden among self-described conservatives with 70 percent of the vote and among white evangelicals with 68 percent of the vote. Fifty-three percent of those who regularly attend church back Trump, as do 52 percent of white men. When it comes to whites without college degrees, Trump has an advantage, polling at 50 percent, 13 points ahead of Biden.
According to Democratic pollster Chris Anderson, however, the poll is not all good news for Biden.
“Since our last poll, Biden has won enough delegates to make him the presumptive Democratic nominee, but the horserace has not budged. This might be a bad sign for Biden since he has received extensive and largely positive news coverage over the last month,” Anderson explained, adding that the coronavirus pandemic could inject an element of unpredictability into the race.
“But there appears to be a modest rallying to the flag effect in response to the pandemic that is rewriting our political and social landscape in still unknown ways,” he said.