Many Americans consider next year’s presidential election the most important of their lifetimes — and they’re not looking forward to it.
In fact, most people are approaching the 2020 election with “dread,” according to a new USA Today/Suffolk University Poll of 1,000 registered voters released on Wednesday. When asked to give one word to describe how they feel about the heading to the ballots to either re-elect President Trump or to vote him out, four of the top five responses were “frightened,” “train wreck,” “nervous” and “chaotic.”
This could be because so much is riding on whomever wins. More than eight in 10 Americans believe that the fundamental values of the U.S. are being tested in this election in a way that they haven’t been in previous political contests.
And there’s no relief in sight, even once the race to the White House is over. Four in 10 respondents said that if the candidate they support loses, they would have “little or no confidence” that the election had been conducted in “a fair-and-square way,” which means questions of the next president’s legitimacy could linger. Democrats (45%) were more likely to question the outcome if their candidate lost, compared to Republicans (30%). Dems said they would suspect foreign interference and vote suppression, while Republicans would blame voter fraud — particularly ballots cast by people who weren’t eligible.
The poll also looked at where the candidates stand in the packed Democratic field, and found former Vice President Joe Biden well ahead of the pack at 32%, with Senator Elizabeth Warren in second at 14%, and Senator Bernie Sanders in third with 12%. If the election were held today, 41% of voters in this poll said they would choose the still unnamed Democratic nominee, while 39% would vote Trump. Ten percent would pick a third-party candidate, and 10% were still undecided.
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This aligns with a Quinnipiac poll of 1,422 voters, also released on Wednesday, which put Biden as the favorite with 32% of the vote, followed by Warren with 19% and Sanders with 15%. A Monmouth University poll released earlier this week had the three of them in a virtual tie.
Still, the majority of Republicans (90%) in the USA Today/Suffolk poll said that they supported Trump, with just 5% backing former Massachusetts governor and challenger Bill Weld. Among Democrats, even if their preferred person doesn’t clinch the nomination, 81% said they would still vote for their party’s candidate. Just 5% said they would back a third-party candidate; 4% would vote for Trump; and 3% wouldn’t vote, period.
Trump currently holds an approval-disapproval rating of 44%-54% among the voters in the USA Today/Suffolk study. The approval-disapproval figures are 38%-56% in the Quinnipiac poll.
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