President Trump said that he liked Oprah Winfrey and didn’t believe she would run for president in 2020, when he spoke with reporters on Tuesday. Though he did express confidence if Winfrey did run, saying: “Yeah I’ll beat Oprah. Oprah would be a lot of fun.”
On the heels of that presidential optimism, comes a Rasmussen poll which suggests that the president’s air of confidence might be misplaced.
According to a Rasmussen Reports survey released on Wednesday, 48 percent of likely U.S. voters would choose entertainment mogul Oprah Winfrey in 2020, while 38 percent would choose Trump.
Notably, an additional 14 percent of voters said they would be undecided in a contest between the two.
Buzz surrounding a possible presidential bid for Winfrey began after her speech at the Golden Globes on Sunday night. Winfrey used the occasion of becoming the first black woman to receive the Cecile B. DeMille award, to speak about a promising future for minority women and, to credit other women who have spoken out about sexual harassment in Hollywood.
CNN’s Brian Stelter reported that two “close friends” of Oprah’s claim that she is “actively thinking” about a presidential run.
According to Yahoo, “Polling outlets have surveyed Oprah’s popularity in the past, and a March 2017 Quinnipiac poll found Oprah with a 52 percent favorability rating and massive 72 percent favorability rating with Democrats. The latest Rasmussen poll shows Oprah with a 55 percent general favorability, and 27 percent ‘very favorable’ rating.
“And yet despite that strong popularity return for the television personality, 69 percent of respondents to the March 2017 poll said she shouldn’t run for president.”
The Rasmussen Reports survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted January 8-9, 2018 and has a margin of sampling error of three percentage points.