Story highlights Trump trails Biden by 17 points, Sanders by 13 and Winfrey by 9 in potential 2020 races

Polling this far ahead of an election fails to fully reflect the realities of a campaign

Washington (CNN) President Donald Trump faces an uphill climb to re-election in 2020 against a slate of prominent potential Democratic hopefuls, according to new polling from CNN conducted by SSRS.

In a series of hypothetical 2020 one-on-one contests Trump trails Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders by a 55% to 42% margin among registered voters. He lags further behind former Vice President Joe Biden by a wide 57% to 40% split, and trails television personality Oprah Winfrey by a 51% to 42% divide.

The potential broad margins for the Democratic 2020 matchups are shaped by winning over some core groups that cast ballots for Trump in 2016, including white women and whites with a college degree. Trump leads among whites without a degree, though it's cut to just one-third of his gaping 2016 margin. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2 percentage points in 2016 but lost in the Electoral College.

Still, polling this far ahead of an election fails to fully reflect the realities of a campaign — namely, the focused negative messaging that the sitting President currently faces. Trump launched his 2020 bid with federal election officials on the day of his inauguration, allowing him to raise money and hold events for his re-election campaign since he entered the White House.

A majority of Americans, 57%, say they have a favorable view of Sanders — essentially unchanged since he bowed out of the Democratic presidential primary in 2016. A similar 58% say they have a favorable view of Biden, up from the 51% favorable rating he had when he was last considering a run in October 2015. More Americans, 64%, say they have a favorable view of Winfrey.

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