by Frank Holmes, reporter
Former Vice President Joe Biden has beaten back Bernie Sanders and established himself as the overwhelming favorite for the Democratic Party presidential nomination—but he’s got a big polling problem.
Polls show Biden trailing 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton at the same point in 2016—just a few months before Donald Trump handed her a surprise defeat.
Biden actually leads President Trump in a head-to-head match-up, according to a RealClearPolitics survey of 2020 general election polls.
Biden leads Trump by an average of about 5.5%.
But at this point in 2016, Hillary Clinton led Trump by an average of 10 points—and she was still in a primary fight against Bernie Sanders.
Sanders and former President Barack Obama have already endorsed Biden, but he’s still behind Clinton.
In the most recent Monmouth poll, Biden’s lead is within the margin of error.
And not every poll has the Democrat winning. Last week, Trump tied Biden in a poll conducted by Fox News—and Trump defeated Biden in another national poll released earlier this month.
That’s not Biden’s only headache. He’s facing a major enthusiasm gap. The Washington Post reports that less than three out of four Biden supporters say they support their candidate enthusiastically, compared to almost nine out of 10 Trump voters.
Biden leads a fractured party and has very few passionate supporters…and the numbers show it.
Part of Biden’s woes come from Bernie Sanders’ voters, who actually think the ultra-liberal Biden isn’t “progressive” enough.
“With all due respect for Bernie Sanders…I don’t endorse Joe Biden,” wrote former Sanders campaign spokesperson Briahna Joy Gray.
With the utmost respect for Bernie Sanders, who is an incredible human being & a genuine inspiration, I don't endorse Joe Biden.
I supported Bernie Sanders because he backed ideas like #MedicareForAll, cancelling ALL student debt, & a wealth tax. Biden supports none of those.
— Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) April 13, 2020
In Michigan, a must-win for Biden this November, 60% of Sanders voters have said they won’t vote for Joe.
Former MSNBC host Krystal Ball said she and a lot of leftists won’t mark Trump’s name on their presidential ballot, “but you can leave it blank.”
Biden also lags behind Hillary Clinton’s failed campaign with another key voting bloc: young voters.
Analysts say that a strong youth vote can make, or break, a Democrat’s candidacy.
Clinton and John Kerry won 55% of youth votes in their losing efforts in 2004 and 2016. Barack Obama won 60%.
“The youth vote crossed or met that 60 percent threshold in each of those campaigns that were successful,” said John Della Volpe of Harvard University.
That spells trouble for the Democrats this fall.
Even after turning the primaries into a two-man race, Joe Biden didn’t win a majority of young voters in his own party until the Mississippi primary.
Back in 2016, Hillary Clinton beat Sanders with young voters in Mississippi, Alabama, and “a handful” of other states, according to researchers at Tufts University.
That means Biden’s even further behind than Hillary Clinton was four years ago.
Whether Biden realizes it or not, the rest of the Democratic Party knows his candidacy is in hot water if the party doesn’t patch up its differences fast.
But the Democratic Party chairman sounded anything but optimistic about Biden attracting Sanders’ followers, who believe their candidate has been burned by the party establishment two elections in a row.
“The search for unity is a timeless journey,” said Tom Perez. “We have more work to do.”
Biden thinks one woman holds the answer to both problems: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, D-N.Y.— only she doesn’t seem too interested in cooperating.
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AOC has said she wants to make party unity “uncomfortable for everyone involved,” and she rejected any “vague, kumbaya” unity that would “brush real policies…under the rug.”
Then she listed her demands.
“If we’re not talking about paths to citizenship for undocumented people,” then it won’t be enough, she said. She also wants Biden to go all-in on her $93 trillion Green New Deal.
Biden, who sold himself as a “moderate,” has moved further and further Left to keep up.
But even if he wins AOC’s support, it still may not be enough.
“There could just be something about Biden that voters are not particularly thrilled about,” wrote Republican columnist Byron York for The Washington Examiner.
Some people have “persistent doubts about his physical stamina to hold the world’s most demanding job starting at age 78,” he wrote, or the “feeling that Biden, who first entered the Senate in 1973, nearly a half-century ago, is a man of the past.”
And if Biden keeps trailing Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, his political career will be history.
Frank Holmes is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”