2020 Democratic Horse Race

Harvard Harris Poll Debrief with Mark Penn and Bob Cusack

"Let's turn to the Democratic horse race. Some changes there and I think it's been reflected in a lot of the fundraising numbers that you've seen. Joe Biden continues to lead the pack in our poll. We look at Democrats nationwide and he's polling just a little over 30%. Bernie Sanders is now and has been number two at very close to 20%. Elizabeth Warren now in the low teens. Michael Bloomberg coming in at around 7%, tied with mayor Pete. Andrew Yang scoring in there about four or five and so the field is the field. I think for a long time we talked about new people possibly getting in, dissatisfaction with the field. 47% of the Democratic primary voters now say that they are committed to their choice.
More and more, this is looking like a Biden, Sanders race. We know that the Warren voters would take Sanders as a second choice. I think a lot of Bloomberg voters would take Biden as a second choice. I think Mayor Pete's votes would probably split going equally to those two or three candidates. But if this comes down to a broker convention, it will be a convention in which the moderates and the left each look to try to get a majority of delegates. In an election right now, that could very well be indecisive, particularly if Sanders and Warren split the more left-leaning vote, and particularly if the moderates are split among Biden, Bloomberg, and Mayor Pete.
Donald Trump's reelection, still at 39%. Would people prefer a Republican candidate or a Democratic candidate? 43 Democrat, 39 Republican, 10% undecided, still 8% saying they're going to vote for an independent or other candidate. We don't know who those independent slates will be and whether they will draw more from the Democrats or more from the Republicans. My sense last time was that Johnson drew more from the Republicans and Stein drew almost exclusively from the Democrats. People forget the Johnson had about 6% so that probably the Republicans were hurt more than the Democrats of the independent candidates. We'll see what the slate is this year.
Do you like or dislike Donald Trump personally? He's at 30%. he's been at 31 or 30% the last few months. He was as low as 26%, so this is a very slight improvement. But again, when you look at it, there's 58% that don't like him personally and 60% who approve of the job that he's doing on the economy. And this duality here between not liking President Trump but liking his economic policy is what creates a tremendous number of cross pressured voters. And that means there can be an incredible amount of volatility in the outcome of this race.
Now we looked at two head to heads, not among people, but among platforms. So we compared a presidential candidate who stands for lower taxes, reduce government regulations, strengthening our military and strengthening our border to reduce illegal immigrants, standing up more to China and Iran and seeking better trade deals for the US. Against a second issue plank, a presidential candidate who stands for the green new deal and climate change, Medicare for all, free college tuition, opening our borders to many more immigrants and raising taxes to pay for those programs. That would generally be characterized as the kinds of positions that Warren or Sanders might take. When you look at those issue groupings, 61% said they would go for the lower tax, lower government candidate or platform over the green new deal, Medicare for all, free college platform which got 39%. that is a really wide gap. That's why the contrast on personalities and values is a lot closer than the conflict between at least those two candidates and where they are on issues."