Poll: GOP voters drawn to Biden more than other 2020 Democrats

Republican voters are more drawn to former Vice President Joe Biden than to the rest of the candidates in the crowded Democratic presidential primary field, according to a new nationwide survey.

The Hill-HarrisX poll released Monday shows that 33 percent of GOP respondents named Biden as the Democratic candidate who came the closest to sharing their political views.

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg received the second-highest support among Republican voters at 30 percent and 28 percent thought Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) better aligned with their views.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg both garnered 26 percent of respondents who said the candidates closely shared their values.

Biden, the front-runner in most national polls, has long sought to position himself as the most electable challenger to President Trump.

The former vice president has often argued that he is the only candidate who can unseat Trump and has pointed to polling that shows him beating the president in 2020.

Last month, Biden sent out a fundraising email to supporters citing a Times-Siena College poll showing him ahead in a hypothetical 2020 match-up with Trump in key swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida and Wisconsin while Warren and Sanders trailed.

“This speaks for itself,” Biden’s campaign said in the fundraising email. “If Joe Biden wins the primary, he can beat Trump in a general election. Other candidates can’t.”

However, what Biden’s fundraising email didn’t highlight was the fact that Sanders led Trump by 3 points in Michigan, tied with him in Wisconsin and narrowly trailed him in Pennsylvania. The email also failed to note that Trump led all three Democrats in the poll in North Carolina.

The Hill-HarrisX survey was conducted among 1,000 registered voters between Dec. 13-14. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

—Tess Bonn