Joe Biden Facing Enormous Enthusiasm Gap In Matchup Against Donald Trump, Says Poll

Former Vice President Joe Biden will almost certainly win the Democratic Party‘s presidential nomination, but a new ABC News/Washington Post poll suggests that the vast majority of his supporters are not excited about voting for him.

According to the poll, only 24 percent of Biden supporters are highly enthusiastic about supporting him, which is the lowest number on record for a Democratic presidential candidate. In comparison, 53 percent of Trump supporters are highly enthusiastic about voting for their candidate in November.

In head-to-head matchups against President Donald Trump, Biden has displayed strength, polling ahead of the commander-in-chief in most surveys. However, although Biden’s numbers among “somewhat” enthusiastic supporters are slightly better, he still trails Trump by 12 points.

This major obstacle was seen in the last election by former secretary of state and Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton. In September 2016, two months before the election, only 32 percent of Clinton supporters were enthusiastic about backing their candidate.

Historically, low enthusiasm has been a major red flag. In 2008, only 17 percent of former Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s voters were enthusiastic about supporting him. Similarly, only 23 percent of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s supporters were enthusiastic about voting for him in 2012. Clinton, McCain and Romney all lost the general election.

“Perhaps the Democrats’ biggest risk is under the surface, in Trump’s big advantage in backers who are ‘very’ enthusiastic about supporting him. Strong enthusiasm for a candidate can help boost turnout on Election Day, a must-have particularly for Democrats, who rely more on motivating less-frequent voters to come to the polls.”

Although Democrats are apparently not enthusiastic about voting for Biden, most of them say that they would do so. Eighty percent of Sanders supporters say they will vote for Biden against Trump, even though only nine percent of them are “very” enthusiastic about doing so. An additional 49 percent say they are “somewhat” enthusiastic about backing the former vice president.

On the issues, Trump has a decent advantage when it comes to the economy, with 50 percent of voters trusting he would be able to handle it better than Biden, who enjoys the trust of 42 percent of voters. When it comes to health care, Biden is 13 points ahead of Trump.

As previously reported by The Inquisitr, the Biden campaign appears to be shifting its focus to Trump’s handling of the coronavirus crisis. Biden is matching Trump’s White House press conferences with his own briefings, and the campaign is running ads blasting the president for the way he has handled the crisis.