Who’s Actually Electable in 2020?

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2019

⏱️ 22 minutes

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Summary

The New York Times and Siena College conducted a major new poll, tackling the biggest questions about the 2020 presidential race: How likely is President Trump to be re-elected and which Democrat is best positioned to defeat him? The results reveal that the president remains highly competitive in the battleground states likeliest to decide his re-election, with Democratic candidates struggling to win back the support of white working-class voters who backed Mr. Trump in 2016. The poll also presents a snapshot of how the top Democratic candidates might fare in the general election — a critical question for Democratic voters hoping to take back the White House. Guest: Nate Cohn, a domestic correspondent for The Upshot at The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background reading: The new poll suggests Senator Elizabeth Warren might struggle with some battleground swing voters, and found evidence that both gender bias and ideological doubts were hurting her.The top Democratic presidential candidates are locked in a close race in the Iowa caucuses, a key early test in the nomination race. But there, Ms. Warren currently has a slight edge. Here are five theories about what “electability” means in the 2020 race.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, may I speak with Jack? Hi, Jack. My name's Taylor. I'm just calling
0:05.3	you to see an ecology research institute. We're just speaking briefly today to
0:09.1	voters in your area. No one will try to sell you anything. Have I reached you on a
0:13.6	landline or a cell phone? Do you have time to take a survey? It just takes about 10
0:18.8	minutes. Okay, are you sure it's very important?
0:26.4	Okay, thank you. You too. Bye.
0:38.4	From the New York Times, I'm Michael Babaro. This is The Daily. Today. Now, if the
0:44.8	2020 US president's election was held today, who would you vote for if the
0:49.5	candidates were Joe Biden or Donald Trump? The Times conducts a major new poll
0:54.7	that tackles the biggest questions of the 2020 presidential race. And now for
1:00.0	the next set of questions, tell me which of the two Democrats you'd be likely
1:03.6	or to support for. How likely is Donald Trump to be reelected and which
1:09.3	Democrat is best position to defeat him? It's Tuesday, November 5th.
1:16.3	Nate Cone, this morning, the Times released this poll that you have been
1:22.5	working on. That's as best I can tell, the biggest poll the Times has done in
1:27.1	the 2020 campaign. What is the story of this particular poll? I think we
1:31.7	decided to pursue this project for two main reasons. The first is because of
1:35.9	electability. Polls show that Democrats are obsessed with how to beat the
1:40.4	president. They say that they would rather vote for a candidate who they thought
1:43.3	had the best chance to beat president Trump, even more so than someone who they
1:47.0	agree with most on the issues. And we thought that was an issue that we didn't know
1:51.2	very much about, that we didn't have very much data that could address that
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