The latest USC Dornsife/LA Times poll shows Democrats believe Biden is the likely candidate to beat Trump among Democratic voters. 

Contact: Emily Gersema, (213) 361-6730 or gersema@usc.edu; or Jenesse Miller, (213) 810‑8554 or jenessem@usc.edu

More than half of Democratic voters overall believe a white male candidate is the most likely to beat President Donald Trump. Voters chose a white male more often than other generic categories regardless of whom they support—and in most cases regardless of their own ethnicity and gender—USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times national tracking poll shows.

When asked about specific candidates, Democrats rated Vice President Joe Biden as the most likely among top-ranked presidential candidates to beat President Trump, with 86% saying Biden could “probably” or “definitely” beat Trump.

The survey results also revealed that more than two-thirds of Democrats identify themselves as liberal/progressive or moderate/conservative. Forty percent described themselves as liberal/progressive and 27% identified as moderate/conservative. Only one in ten Democrats identified as Democratic Socialists; of these Democrats, one-third are African American, more than half are younger voters and two-thirds are women.

The sample of 5,108 eligible U.S. voters participated from May 15 to June 15, 2019. They are members of USC Dornsife's Center for Economic and Social Research’s Understanding America Study (UAS) probability-based internet panel.  

The poll was conducted online in respondents’ choice of English or Spanish. The overall margin of sampling error is +/- 2 percentage points for all U.S. eligible voters and +/- 3 for 2020 Democratic primary voters.

Information about the poll including methodology, question wording and results, as well as the archive of results of prior USC Dornsife/LA Times polls, are available online at bit.ly/USCPolls

About the poll

The USC Dornsife/LA Times poll is a partnership of The Los Angeles Times and two institutions of the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences: the Center for the Political Future and the Center for Economic and Social Research. For more information about the Center for Economic and Social Research Understanding America Study internet panel, visit https://uasdata.usc.edu.

The following experts at USC Dornsife who lead the poll are available for interviews upon request:

• Robert Shrum, director of the Center for the Political Future
• Michael Murphy, co-director of the Center for the Political Future
• Jill Darling, survey director of the Center for Economic and Social Research

To arrange an interview with experts about the poll, please contact Emily Gersema, (213) 361-6730 or gersema@usc.edu

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