A new poll shows Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont faring best among Democrats against President Trump in a Texas matchup for the November general election.
Sanders is just three points behind Trump among likely 2020 general election voters.
Vice President Joe Biden trails Trump by 5 points and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren by 7 points. Pete Buttigieg is 8 points behind the president. The margin of error for likely general election voters was +/- 4.30 percentage points in the results by Texas Lyceum.
Democrats are eager for substantive gains in Texas this year, and Sanders is the candidate who draws the most enthusiasm among young and independent voters, Texas Lyceum director Josh Blank told the Austin American-Statesman.
“When we look at the Democratic nominating contest, Sanders was far and away the choice of voters under 30 — 57% selected Sanders,” Blank said. “That’s also confirmed in the head-to-head matchups with President Trump. So while the other three Democrats tested, Biden, Warren, and Buttigieg, split that vote about 60-40 in their favor, Sanders beats Trump 70-30 among voters 18 to 29 years old.” Sanders was also the only Democratic candidate to beat Trump with independents.
Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, called Trump’s reelection a “coin flip.”
Cruz said he expects high voter turnout from Democrats this year — though he reasoned that impeachment would boost Trump. In his 2018 race against Beto O’Rourke, Cruz said turnout among Democrats more than doubled, up from 1.8 million to 4 million. “I think that 2018 race is foreshadowing for 2020,” he said. “I think you’re going to see a massive Democratic turnout in 2020. That everyone on the far Left that hates Trump, they’re going to show up.”
Democrats lost a special election this week in the Houston suburbs of Fort Bend County in a race they had branded as the first step in a larger plan to win Texas. A win would be “earth-shattering,” the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee had said.
Democratic primary candidates Biden, Warren, and Mike Bloomberg all endorsed the Democrat running to fill the seat. Bloomberg campaigned for her, as did former presidential candidates Julian Castro and Beto O’Rourke, who called the race “the most important election [yet] in 2020.” More than 70% of Elizabeth Markowitz’s contributions came from outside the state, and 94% came from outside her district, contributing to a nearly $1.3 million pot.
But Markowitz lost yesterday by 16 points, more than twice the margin of victory by which the previous Republican had won. Moreover, it was larger than the margin by which Trump won the district in 2016 — 10 points. Cruz won by 3 points in 2018.
Texas Lyceum surveyed 1,200 Texas adults by telephone from January 10-19, 2020, including 401 Democratic primary voters and 520 likely general election voters.
