Joe Biden Thinks Democrats Could Nominate Mickey Mouse and Take on Donald Trump
“I refuse to suggest any Democrat could lose. I think we could run Mickey Mouse against this president and have a shot,” Joe Biden told Morning Joe. This is a peculiar argument for the former vice president to make. All last year, Biden has positioned himself as the candidate most able to comfortably defeat Trump, promising to “beat him like a drum.”
The top issue for Democratic voters this primary season has been defeating President Donald Trump this November. The pressure to support the Democratic nominee no matter who it is has been strong, with electability a highly sought-after qualification.
“I refuse to suggest any Democrat could lose. I think we could run Mickey Mouse against this president and have a shot,” Joe Biden told Morning Joe. This is a peculiar argument for the former vice president to make. All last year, Biden has positioned himself as the candidate most able to comfortably defeat Trump, promising to “beat him like a drum.”
That argument has suffered after the debacle of the Iowa caucus where Biden came in fourth place. Polling for the New Hampshire primary, which takes place today, currently has “Lunch Bucket Joe” in a tight race for fourth or fifth place. Biden is seeing is support shrink, with a narrative rising that he’s no longer a winning bet.
Now, the former frontrunner is openly saying that defeating Donald Trump will be an easy task, with possibly no one but a stand-in candidate required. In 2016, Trump won an upset victory over former secretary of state Hillary Clinton whom many pundits dubbed the most qualified nominee in U.S. history.
Yesterday, the results of a Quinnipiac poll trended on Twitter. It showed Trump losing to six different Democratic candidates. The closest margin was with Senators Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren, who each beat Trump by 4%. The largest margin was with former Mayor of New York City Michael Bloomberg, who had a nine-point lead over the incumbent. Quinnipiac had Biden beating Trump by 7%.
Democratic faith in these results may be overblown, however. Quinnipiac regularly over-polls Democrats which have led to their results being skewed and considered outliers by other pollsters. Its normal practice to have more Democrats included in a poll than Republicans, since there are more registered Democrats in the country than members of the GOP.
In this case, Quinnipiac doubled the margin of Democratic voters that turned out in 2016. Their margin was even a third larger than Democratic turnout in 2018, which was branded the “Democratic wave.” For their poll to be accurate, 2020 would have to have turnout rivaling that of the 2008 Barack Obama campaign. Democratic turnout in the Iowa caucus last week was lower than in 2016.
In most general election polling among the top tier of Democratic candidates, Joe Biden is still the most competitive against Trump, and former Mayor of South Bend, Indiana Pete Buttigieg is the least competitive. Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren fall in the middle.
Last week Gallup polled President Trump as having a 49% approval rating, the highest of his presidency.
Hunter DeRensis is senior reporter for the National Interest. Follow him on Twitter @HunterDeRensis.