Gallup--Less Than Half in U.S. Would Vote for a Socialist for President

[Gothmog]

110. Analysis How Trump wins in 2020: Americans see his opponent as a "socialist"

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But there is one matchup in which Trump actually leads: When voters have to choose between him and a candidate they believe is a “socialist,” Trump led 49 percent to 43 percent.

This is obviously a hypothetical exercise. The idea that the Democratic nominee will call themselves a socialist is far-fetched (even Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont prefers to be called a “democratic socialist&quot . And just because Trump argues that his opponent is a socialist doesn’t mean they will be viewed by everyone — or even most people — accordingly.

But the finding does hint at how central this question could be to Trump’s reelection hopes. Given Trump’s long-standing unpopularity, a big question has always been whether he will be able to take the eventual Democratic nominee and drag them down to his level. He showed he could do it in 2016 with Hillary Clinton, who ended the campaign as unpopular as Trump was, but it’s not clear whether he’ll be able to do it again.

Trump also has some material to work with. The Democratic candidates in the first debate two weeks ago went further to the left on issues such as health care and immigration than in any modern Democratic primary. Many of them embraced single-payer health care, and some even said they would eliminate private health insurance. Many said they would decriminalize crossing the border without documentation, making it a civil matter. And many said they would support health-care coverage for undocumented immigrants, which California only recently became the first state to experiment with.