American millionaires prefer former Vice President Joe Biden in head-to-head matchup with incumbent President Donald Trump, according to a new survey by CNBC.
The poll, conducted by the Spectrem Group on CNBC’s behalf, asked 750 individuals with “investable assets” of more than $1 million who they would want to see win the 2020 presidential election. Respondents were given the option between Trump and a handful of the top Democrat presidential hopefuls, including Biden, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), among others.
Biden, who to date has centered his bid for the Democrat nomination on his “middle class Joe” image, was the clear favorite among the millionaires surveyed. The former vice president led Trump in a hypothetical matchup 53 percent to 39 percent, with 9 percent undecided.
“I think what it tells us is that millionaires think that Biden is better against Trump than the other candidates,” George Walper, the president of Spectrem Group, said upon the poll’s release.
The support could be a boon for Biden’s campaign coffers, especially as he faces a long primary campaign with more than 20 competitors.
“Nearly half of Democratic millionaires plan to donate to the 2020 campaign or have already donated, according to the survey, that compares with less than a third of Republicans,” CNBC reported.
Of the 750 surveyed millionaires, 261 identified as Republicans, 218 as Democrats, and 261 as independent. CNBC provided neither a margin of error or date for when the poll was conducted.
The poll, however, showed that although Biden was the preferred candidate of millionaires, that didn’t necessarily extend to everyone else in the Democrat field.
When polled against Sanders, who has made his distaste for the wealthy evident on the campaign trail, Trump was favored by 46 percent to 40 percent. Similarly, in a matchup against the Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Trump led the fiery populist 47 percent to 40 percent. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), who has appealed to many of the same donors that backed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016, kept the president to a much narrower lead of 45 percent to 42 percent.
Of those included in the poll, Buttigieg was the only other Democrat to beat Trump among millionaires, albeit narrowly (43 percent to 42 percent). The former McKinsey executive has steadily picked up support from Wall Street and business executives since launching his campaign.
A similar poll conducted before the 2016 presidential election found that millionaires preferred former Secretary State Hillary Clinton(44 percent) to Trump (31 percent) by double digits.
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