New Harvard/Harris Poll shows a close presidential race in 2020

SALT LAKE CITY — A new Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll survey posted on TheHill.com shows American voters are divided about who they are going to vote for in next year’s Presidential race.

A sample of 1,859 registered voters taken between Nov. 27-29 indicates 42 percent say they will either probably or definitely vote for whoever is the Democratic candidate in next year’s general election.  Conversely, 39 percent say they will probably or definitely vote for President Trump.

Eight percent of the respondents say they plan on casting their vote for an independent or third-party candidate.  Ten percent say they are currently undecided about who they’ll vote for.

One big issue that stands out among Democrat voters is who has the best chance of beating President Trump next year?  According to the survey, former Vice President Joe Biden is most likely of the current candidates, with 26 percent.

The Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll survey also shows only one other Democratic candidate in double digits, 11 percent of the respondents believe Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has the best chance of unseating the Republican incumbent.  Third-place finisher Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) got seven percent of the respondents saying she would be likeliest to beat Trump in 2020.

Only 3 percent of registered voters believe South Bend, Indiana. Mayor Pete Buttigieg would have the best chance to beat Mr. Trump.

Mark Penn, the co-director of the Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll, believes that although it’s still a competitive race, it would appear that according to this poll at least, voters are most confident that former Vice President Joe Biden is the candidate they feel is most likely to beat Donald Trump.

“Of course Bush and Obama seemed weak going into reelection campaigns as well and they were able to pull it out, so with a year to go, I’d call it a competitive race,” Penn said.

Results were weighted for age within gender, region, race/ethnicity, marital status, household size, income, employment, education, political party and political ideology where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online.