Is Joe Biden the Democrats’ Best Bet?

With two debates completed and less than 6 months until the Iowa caucuses officially kick off the primary season, I pose the following question: is former Vice-President Joe Biden the Democratic party’s best choice to be their nominee and take on President Trump?

The Democrats have a field of 24 candidates for President, probably the largest field for a primary nomination in history and certainly the largest in recent history. Biden is dominating the primary polls nationwide and in the early voting states. He’s also got a sizable edge over Donald Trump in hypothetical head-to-head polls.

In this piece I’ll start by tackling three topics:

1. Can you believe the polls?
2. Why is the 76-year old Biden, a twice failed presidential candidate, dominating the polls in a field with many younger and many more progressive options? Is he the party’s best choice?
3. Which candidate would have the best chance to defeat Donald Trump?

Can You Believe the Polls?

I’m going to start with the most important question: can you believe the polls? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people say that the polls were way off in 2016 when Trump shocked the world by defeating Hillary Clinton. The notion that the polls were fundamentally wrong is partially true but mostly false. Every poll that you can find (either on www.realclearpolitics.com or FiveThirtyEight.com) lists a “margin of error.” That margin is usually somewhere between 2% and 5%.

So, to understand how correct or incorrect the polls were in anticipating the 2016 presidential election results, I present to you the following chart, which shows the final Real Clear Politics average of polls between Trump and Clinton, the actual result, and the amount that the polls were wrong. I’m showing the national popular vote numbers as well as the numbers in 13 swing states:

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As you can see (at the bottom of the chart), the national popular vote poll was only off by 1.1%. In addition, all but two of the state polls were within 5% and all but four within 4%. Wisconsin was a big miss. Ohio and Iowa were big misses too but Trump was expected to win both anyway.

What people forget (because the media never reported it this way) is that, going strictly by the state polls, this was a very close race, with a predicted outcome of a narrow 272-to-266 Clinton victory. Nobody in the media believed that Trump would break through the “blue wall” of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin but the polls in at least Pennsylvania and Michigan were in fact quite close, within any reasonable margin of error.

Now, with respect to the current polls (both in the Democratic primary horse race and in hypothetical head-to-head matchups against Trump), one must take the polls with a big grain of salt. The primary season is over five months away and the general election is nearly 15 months away. Things can and will change.

What the current polls reflect are a snapshot in time. If these elections were to be held tomorrow, you could feel fairly certain that the outcomes would be predictable. Joe Biden would be the 46th President of the United States.

Is Joe Biden the Democratic Party’s Best Choice?

Next, let’s discuss why Biden is dominating the polls among the Democratic contenders, both in nationwide polls and in the key early voting state polls. And friends, Biden has been crushing his opponents in these polls from before he entered the race until now.

Let’s take a look at Biden and nine other contenders: Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, California Senator Kamala Harris, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, former House rep Beto O’Rourke, Hawaii rep Tulsi Gabbard and businessmen Andrew Yang and Tom Steyer.

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I included Steyer in this graphic even though he’s at less than 1% in the nationwide polls because, as a billionaire, he’s spending millions of dollars on national TV ads to raise his profile.

What’s interesting about the Democratic field is that three of the people who by traditional standards are the most qualified presidential candidates are all languishing at under 1% in the polls. I’m talking specifically about Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, Washington Governor Jay Inslee and Montana Governor Steve Bullock.

In the 20th century and beginning of this one, most of our presidents were former governors or Vice-Presidents. William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, FDR, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush all served as the leader of their states. Teddy Roosevelt, Coolidge, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush all served as VP’s before ascending to the Presidency (with, of course, some of them taking the job due to the death of the sitting President). Howard Taft was Secretary of War. Dwight Eisenhower was a highly decorated general. The point is that we used to almost always pick presidents with strong executive experience.

Anyway, the rules are different in our media-obsessed culture. Among the top contenders not named Biden, most of them are Senators who have been on the Sunday morning and cable news shows for the last 5-10 years but haven’t ever led a state or even chaired a Senate committee.

From the standpoint of experience, nobody can match Biden. Besides having been Barack Obama’s VP for eight years, he served in the Senate for 36 years.

Among the other top or second tier contenders, some have had the executive experience of being the mayor of a city (Buttigieg, Sanders and Booker). Harris has the experience of being the California state Attorney General, a serious job.

What has O’Rourke done, besides raise a lot of money in a bid to unseat Texas Senator Ted Cruz?

It’s my opinion that, from a governing standpoint, Bullock, Hickenlooper and Inslee would all be superior choices to Biden simply because Biden is, well, old, 76 years old to be precise. He would break Trump’s record as the oldest elected president ever.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter what I think. The Democratic primary voters (at least those answering the polls) have no interest in their experienced governors. They either want Biden or a progressive-minded sitting Senator or, perhaps an opening gay mayor (Buttigieg).

So why is Biden dominating the Democratic polls against younger or more progressive candidates? Three reasons, in my opinion.

1. He’s the only candidate out of 24 who was Obama’s loyal VP for 8 years. He therefore has by far the highest name recognition in the field. Additionally, Biden is extraordinarily popular among African-American voters, who represent about 25% of the Democratic primary electorate. Being Obama’s VP certainly help explains the affection this constituency has for him.
2. Another reason Biden is dominating the Dems is that he is the leading center-left (“moderate”) candidate who is up against four candidates (Sanders, Warren, Harris and Buttigieg) who are splitting the progressive vote. This is similar to how Trump won. He was the only crazy candidate, running in his own lane, while the “traditional” candidates split the establishment vote.
3. See below.

Is Biden the Best Choice to Defeat Donald Trump?

One thing you will see in every poll involving Democratic primary voters is that their number one issue in choosing a candidate is to pick one who is most likely to defeat Donald Trump. In poll after poll, the respondents say that choosing a nominee who can beat Trump is more important than picking one who most closely aligns with their views.

Because he was Obama’s VP and because he’s “Scranton Joe,” Biden is considered to be the best bet to win back the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. So, what do the polls currently say about that? Let’s look at the national polls of head to head matchups between Biden and Trump as well as 12 key state polls.

In the graphic below, I’m going to add up the potential electoral college votes for both Biden and Trump. In states where no polling exists, I will assume that Trump would win again the states he won in 2016 and lose the states that he lost.

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Well, hello there! If you want statistical evidence whether Biden could beat Trump, you have it. If the election were to be held tomorrow and the polls were reasonably accurate, Biden would score the biggest electoral college blowout (396 to 142) since George H.W. Bush against Michael Dukakis in 1992.

Now, could Biden really beat Trump in Texas? 3 out of 4 polls say “yes.” What about Arizona? Two polls say “yes.” It doesn’t matter. If you assume that every one of these polls underestimates Trump’s support by 5 points, Biden would still win the electoral college 306 to 232.

Here’s what you need to know about Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump. There have been 23 head-to-head polls between the two taken in 2019. Biden has won every one of them, all 23, with only one “win” inside the poll’s stated margin of error. Going back to the beginning of Trump’s presidency, Biden is 40 for 40 against the President. Also, in 2016 when it was Clinton against Trump, there were 11 hypothetical polls taken about a Biden-Trump contest. Biden won by an average of 10.5%.

Biden has three key weaknesses as a candidate:

1. He’s old
2. He has a bit of a creepy factor with women
3. He is gaffe machine, saying dumb things constantly

Funny that these three key weaknesses are ones that he shares with the President, who is also old (and not in as good physical shape), has a history of being accused of sexual misconduct, and says or Tweets head-scratching things on a daily basis.

The huge advantage that Biden has over Trump is that he is much more likable. Biden doesn’t demean everyone who crosses him. Biden doesn’t mean Tweet. He also has a story of personal loss that gives him a massive advantage in empathy over the the President who, quite frankly, sucks bigly when he’s tasked to be the “consoler in chief.”

The bottom line is this. If Biden is the Democratic nominee, Trump is going to have a very, very heavy lift to defeat him. It’s possible of course. Biden could be beaten up so much by his Democratic opponents during the primary campaign that, as damaged goods, he loses to a strong economy, the natural advantage of incumbency and maybe a little help from a guy named Vladimir.

How do the other Dems do against Trump?

So, based on the current polls, how do the other four top contenders do? Here’s how they do in the national popularity polls:

• Bernie Sanders beats Trump by 5.3 points
• Elizabeth Warren beats Trump by 2.4 points
• Kamala Harris beats Trump by 1.5 points
• Pete Buttigieg beats Trump by 0.3 points

Yes, sports fans, Bernie kicks Trump’s behind as well. In 34 national polls dating back to Trump’s inauguration, Bernie beats Trump in 33 of them (by an average of 5.3% compared to Biden’s margin of 8.5%).

With the other candidates, however, the race right now is much closer. Remember that Hillary had a 3.2% lead over Trump in the national polls, beat him by 2.1% in the actual vote, and still lost the election. So, again, we need to look at the swing state polls to determine where, at this snapshot in time, the other Dems stand against the incumbent President.

• Bernie Sanders beats Trump 323 to 215
• Elizabeth Warren and Trump tie in the electoral college at 269 each
• Trump defeats Kamala Harris 275 to 263
• Trump also defeats Pete Buttigieg 275 to 263

So, how do we explain that Sanders, a self-described socialist and the only candidate older than Biden (Bernie turns 78 next month), does so much better than Warren, Harris or Buttigieg? One reason could be that he has the second highest name recognition to Biden.

Another reason (some of you aren’t going to like this) is that Sanders is a straight white man. I am convinced that there is a small percentage of the population that is still not ready for a female president. It’s not a big percentage, maybe 2%, maybe 5%, but in a close election, those small numbers can mean the difference between winning and losing.

Think the straight white man thing doesn’t matter? Well, how else does one explain that Beto O’Rourke beat Trump by an average of 6.6 points in polls taken earlier this year? Is it because of Beto’s brilliant legislative resume, his wealth of executive experience? Or is it because he’s a young, tall, and charismatic straight man.

Does the man have to be white? Well, Barack Obama certainly proved that the young, straight, charismatic man can win even as a minority. Need more proof? There have been 15 polls taken since Trump’s inauguration between the President and Cory Booker. The New Jersey Senator has won 14 out of those 15 polls, winning by an average of 5.6%.

Could Warren, Harris or Buttigieg Defeat Trump?

This is of course a critical question for a great many Democratic primary voters when choosing whether to go for what they really want, a more progressive candidate than Joe Biden.

The numbers we’ve shared clearly show that all three of these candidates fare much more poorly against Trump than the straight men (Biden, Sanders, O’Rourke, Booker). Let’s tackle Mayor Pete first. I think there’s virtually no chance he becomes the nominee. If somehow it happened, he would lose. America has only recently embraced gay marriage but it’s a slim majority. Buttigieg is brilliant, and extraordinarily impressive man. But remember it was just 7 years ago that Obama came out in favor of it. It’s too soon for America’s first gay President; the country isn’t ready.

How about Warren or Harris? This is just a guess but I think Harris would have a better chance of being the first female president than Warren.

Harris is younger and more attractive. Warren in 70 years old; Harris is 54. Warren does not have a great smile. I’m sorry if that sounds sexist but it’s true. Harris has the smile and is beautiful.

In the history of presidential contests dating back to JFK against Nixon in 1960, the candidate who has more personal charisma and/or is more attractive physically usually wins. The American people are used to men as presidents. You can’t poll this because people won’t admit but I am convinced that the 2-to-5 percent bias against female candidates (on a national scale) is real.

Still, I think Harris could overcome that disadvantage and win anyway. But I’m not sure. I’m less sure about Warren. Besides that fact that Warren would be the Democrats’ second consecutive older woman who wears pantsuits, recent history has not been kind to politicians from Massachusetts (see Dukakis, John Kerry, Mitt Romney).

The Silver Lining for the GOP if Biden beats Trump

I’m going to finish by briefly sharing what I believe would be a hidden benefit to the Republican party if Trump loses to Biden. Here it is. If Biden is the democratic nominee and wins the presidency, he will enter the Oval Office in a weaker position than most presidents in recent history. Even if he wins in a landslide the victory will still be more about a rejection of Trump than a yearning for Biden.

If Biden becomes president, he will be 81 years old when running for re-election. That makes him a easier incumbent to defeat than a younger president who wins because the country embraces a more progressive agenda. This would likely lead to a similar result as 1992, when Clinton defeated Bush. Remember, Bush won in 1988 on the coattails of the enormously popular Reagan. He didn’t win because the country was thirsting for Bush.

Only once since FDR has the same party won the Oval Office three elections in a row (Reagan/Reagan/Bush). The pendulum always swings back and forth. If Trump manages to win re-election, there will still be four more years of controversy, insane Tweets and potential legal peril. Trump has turned the Republican party into the Trump party. How would the next nominee fare in 2024? I think the Dems would win easily.

If, however, Biden becomes president, the Trump era will be over and the Republicans will have four years to find a younger nominee to run against the octogenarian president. Trumpism cannot last forever because it is based on the cult of the individual. For the long term, the GOP will be better off if it’s a four-year aberration rather than the defining feature of the party for an entire generation.

Thanks for reading.

Chris Bodig