In counties where Iowa’s voters switched most strongly from Barack Obama in 2012 to Donald Trump in 2016, Joe Biden did well
THE BIGGEST question facing Democrats as they select a candidate for November’s presidential election is: “Who can defeat Donald Trump?”. In a poll conducted this month by YouGov, on behalf of, over two-thirds of Democratic primary voters across the country said it was more important to nominate a candidate “who can win the general election in November” than one “who agrees with [their] position on most issues.
On this measure, Joe Biden, the former vice-president, may be their strongest option. Polls suggest Mr Biden would fare better than his competitors against Mr Trump in the general election. This has fuelled his claim of being the most electable primary candidate on the ballot. The Iowa caucuses on February 3rd offered the first real-world election results to assess Mr Biden’s claim. He did poorly in the primary, coming fourth behind Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. But Iowa’s Democrats are more white and left-wing than Democrats country-wide. And even within the Hawkeye State, underlying data from the caucuses suggest Mr Biden still has a good claim to be the best man to beat Mr Trump.
There is good reason to think that Democrats can flip such swing counties in November. Consider the mid-term elections of 2018. In counties where the electorate shifted heavily from Mr Obama in 2012 to Mr Trump in 2016, Democratic candidates running for the Senate two years later tended to have the most success, increasing their party’s vote share by double-digit percentage points.
All this suggests that “Obama-Trump” supporters are fickle, and could be persuaded to swing back to the Democrats in this year’s presidential election—if the right candidate runs. Assuming they have similar inclinations as voters in the Democratic primaries, they are more likely to vote for Joe Biden than Bernie Sanders.
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