Poll: Biden becoming 2020 choice among Democrats

Former Vice President Joe Biden is crisscrossing the country to promote his new book and Democrat voters are increasingly supporting him as a presidential candidate according to a new poll.

The Rasmussen Reports poll released Monday showed that 41% of likely Democratic party voters felt that Biden would make the best candidate to run against President Donald Trump in 2020, up from just 15% in February when he ran second to Bernie Sanders. Sanders garnered 25% in the February poll.

It’s unclear whether Biden will run. People close to him indicate that he’s paying attention to who might challenge Trump but are non-committal on Biden’s intentions.

“If someone emerges that the former VP believes can beat [Trump], I think he is at peace with that,” said one Biden-friendly donor. “On the other hand, if that person doesn’t exist or doesn’t run, you can expect Joe Biden to take a very serious look.”

Biden met with Obama’s former chief-of-staff, Rahm Emanuel, just a few weeks ago and has become even more publicly critical of the president.

“How many of you — I mean this sincerely — how many of you, when the president was elected, were either happy or bemused or a little embarrassed or not quite sure, but now are really fundamentally worried about our democracy or the prospect of an international conflict or nuclear war?” Biden said in earlier this month. “How many of you now, whether you voted for him or not, are beginning to wonder whether or not the very roots of the invisible moral fabric that holds everything up is eroding in a way that’s going to be dangerous for democratic institutions?”

Democrats are heavily focused on identity politics so it appears an odd choice to choose an older white guy to against the white guy currently in the White House. While Republican primaries tend to bring a veritable cornucopia of candidates, the DNC prefers to railroad the party choice down their voters’ throats – so any bad choice is completely, and likely, possible.