Vermont senator Bernie Sanders would beat Donald Trump if the 2020 election were held today, a new Fox News poll suggests.
The poll from the conservative news outlet shows Mr Sanders and former vice president Joe Biden — who has not announced a run just yet — are the only two democrats right now who would beat the president in a hypothetical head-to-head match up.
For his part, Mr Biden enjoys a bigger lead in the poll results, with a 7 point advantage over the incumbent president. Meanwhile, Mr Sanders received support from 44 per cent of those surveyed compared to Mr Trump’s 41 per cent.
While Mr Biden and Mr Sanders are the only two to lead Mr Trump in the poll, the results show that the crowded democratic primary field has several other strong contenders.
Senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, for instance, both trail the president slightly in the Fox News survey, coming up just 2 per cent short in their own head-to-head scenarios.
That Mr Biden and Mr Sanders had such a strong showing is perhaps unsurprising, given their general polling in the 2016 democratic field so far.
In poll after poll, the two men rein supreme in the crowded field, with Mr Biden often leading the pack. In the Fox poll, for example, Mr Biden comes in first with 31 per cent of the support, followed by Mr Sanders with 23 per cent, among Democratic primary voters surveyed.
All of the other candidates in the field fall below 10 per cent.
But, the first votes in the democratic primary season are months away, and much can change as the dust settles in the campaigns.
Former congressman Beto O’Rourke, who saw just 8 per cent support in the poll, recently announced his bid and was met with a record-breaking first day fundraising total — an accomplishment that has led to considerable media attention on the failed Texas senate candidate.
Other candidates could see a major boost when the Democratic primary debates begin later this year.
The Fox News poll contacted 1,002 randomly chosen voters across the country using cell phones and landlines, including 403 democratic primary voters between 17 March and 20 March. The poll has a margin of error of plus-or-minus three points for all voters, and plus-or-minus five points for democratic primary voters.
