Following on the NPR/Marist poll released two weeks ago in which 57 percent of Americans vowed to vote against Donald Trump in 2020, another 56 percent of the public told ABC-Washington Post the exact same thing this week. Only the 56 percent is even more ominous for Trump, and the devil’s in the details of the way the question was asked.
As the Post notes, the NPR/Marist poll gave respondents a binary choice of definitely voting against or for Trump, with 13 percent volunteering that they were undecided. The ABC-Post poll, however, offered three choices from the outset, giving people the outlet of being undecided right away. In that instance, the 56 percent who said they would definitely vote against Trump was comparable to the first poll, as was the 28 percent who pledged to vote for Trump (NPR/Marist: 30 percent) and the 14 percent who said they were undecided.
The findings of both polls were extremely consistent, but the second poll was set up to give people more options and therefore inherently make their answers less polemical. Thus the result of the second poll is in some ways even more telling than result of the first. Either way, a very solid majority of the country ain’t voting for Trump—that seems pretty clear.