President Donald Trump trails a nameless Democrat by 8 percentage points in a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll. | Scott Olson/Getty Images POLITICO/Morning Consult poll Poll: Trump reelection bid begins in a hole Just 36 percent say they would vote to reelect the president in 2020, compared with 44 percent who would pick the Democrat.

The 2020 presidential election is still two and a half years away, but President Donald Trump’s path to a second term is littered with roadblocks, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll.

Just 36 percent of voters say they would vote for Trump over a generic Democratic candidate in 2020, compared with 44 percent who would pick the Democrat, the poll shows. One in five voters, 20 percent, are undecided.


Trump has trouble on the homefront, too. Despite the conventional wisdom that the president is wildly popular with the GOP base, the poll also shows a desire among a healthy slice of Republicans — though a distinct minority — for a challenger to run against Trump for the nomination.

While the poll suggests Trump is being buffeted on all sides, he may be stronger than the data suggest. On Election Day 2016, only 38 percent of voters had a favorable opinion of the then-GOP candidate, according to exit polls. More than three in five voters, 61 percent, said he wasn’t qualified to be president.

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But at least against a nameless Democrat, Trump trails by 8 percentage points. That’s largely a result of relative weakness among Republican voters, and a deficit among independents.

While 86 percent of Democratic voters would support the Democratic candidate, 79 percent of GOP voters would vote for Trump. Among independents, the Democratic candidate has an 8-point lead, 36 percent to 28 percent — an advantage that’s only barely statistically significant given the larger margin of sampling error for subgroups.

Still, it’s not clear Republicans are better off with an alternative candidate. A generic Democrat has a 13-point lead against a generic Republican — respondents were told it was a GOP candidate other than Trump — 40 percent to 27 percent.

Overall, a 60 percent majority of voters think Trump should be challenged in the 2020 primaries, compared with 26 percent who don’t think so. Among Republicans, there is some appetite for a Trump primary challenger: 38 percent think someone should run against him, but half do not think so.

Respondents were asked whether they would rather see Vice President Mike Pence serve as president — and fewer Republicans say they would prefer Pence to Trump than said so last summer.

“While nearly four in 10 GOP voters say Donald Trump should face a primary challenge in 2020, no clear challenger has emerged, and Mike Pence’s appeal appears to be declining,” said Kyle Dropp, Morning Consult’s co-founder and chief research officer. “Today, 64 percent of Republicans say that they would prefer Trump as president, compared to 19 percent who pick Pence. That gap has grown since August 2017, when 58 percent picked Trump and 28 percent picked Pence."

The POLITICO/Morning Consult poll was conducted May 17-19, surveying 1,990 registered voters. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2 percentage points.

POLITICO and Morning Consult conducted a second, subsequent survey May 18-22, following the mass shooting at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas. That poll, which focused on proposals for new gun laws, found that 67 percent of voters support stricter gun laws, compared with 27 percent who oppose them.

That’s virtually unchanged from the last time the POLITICO/Morning Consult poll asked about stricter gun laws — March 29-April 1 — when 66 percent said they supported strengthening gun laws, with 28 percent opposed.

The supplemental survey consisted of 1,993 online interviews with registered voters and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Morning Consult is a nonpartisan media and technology company that provides data-driven research and insights on politics, policy and business strategy.

More details on the poll and its methodology can be found in these two documents — May 17-19 Toplines: https://politi.co/2IE1Gu1 | Crosstabs: https://politi.co/2kg3e2X

May 18-22 Toplines: https://politi.co/2rYRjuQ | Crosstabs: https://politi.co/2IFL9tS

