Although it seems like the Democratic primary race is nearly over as Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sanders by nearly 800 delegates and only a handful of primaries remaining, Sanders still claims that he is the Democratic candidate with the best chance to defeat Donald Trump in November. Aside from the math difficulties Sanders faces in clinching the nomination, multiple national polls that show him beating Trump by a larger margin than Clinton.
“In every major poll, national poll and statewide poll done in the last month, six weeks, we are defeating Trump often by big numbers, and always at a larger margin than Secretary Clinton is,” said Sanders on May 29th’s Meet the Press.
For the past few months, many services have been running polls that pit Clinton and Sanders against Trump, the last Republican candidate standing. In March, Sanders made similar claims that he had a better chance at beating Trump than Clinton.
Although Sanders’s claims may seem dubious since he is so far behind his opponent in the Democratic primaries, the fact-checking website Polifact found that his claims this week (and his similar claims in March) are both “Mostly True.”
Politifact looked at eight leading national polls that were conducted in the past six weeks and found that Sanders beats Trump by a larger margin than Clinton in every single one. Sanders beat Trump by an average of 12 points, 6 points higher than Clinton’s lead.
Unlike Clinton, Sanders also defeated Trump in every national poll. In the Fox News-conducted poll, Trump defeated Clinton by three points, while the same poll had Sanders beating Trump by four.
Clinton’s 25 years in the political spotlight are currently working against her, while Sanders was relatively unknown until recently. Although many voters have their minds made up on Clinton, voter opinion could still easily shift towards Sanders.
Featured image: Phil Roeder (Flickr)
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