Over the past few days, FedSmith readers have been given the opportunity to express their personal political preference between Donald Trump or Joe Biden in the upcoming presidential election.
The results are now in.
Small Percentage Prefer Biden
Almost 2,400 readers submitted their opinion. The results were very close. 49% indicated they would vote for Joe Biden if the election were held today. 48.2% indicated they would vote for Donald Trump.
The remainder of the votes were spread over a wide variety of preferences that amounted to “other” people. These ranged from Mitt Romney to Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard and a few other politicians.
Who Will Win the Election?
In some cases, people express a preference for a candidate they do not think will win. To address this, the second question asked of readers was “Who do you think will win the election this year?”
Biden came out again but by an even smaller margin. In this instance, 49.8% of respondents indicated they think Biden will be the next president while 49.3% thought Donald Trump would win re-election.
Strong Interest in the Election
In a presidential election, there is often a strong interest among potential voters. 2020 is no exception.
78% of those responding indicated they are “extremely interested” in the upcoming election. 14.1% said they were “very interested” in the election. 5.3% said they are “somewhat interested” and 2.6% are “not at all interested” in the election.
Enthusiasm or Fear?
Are voters going to the polls this year to vote for a candidate with a program they are interested in seeing implemented? Apparently not. Fear is the biggest factor among respondents this year.
68.7% indicated fear of the other candidate was their biggest concern in choosing a candidate. Only 31.3% were voting out of enthusiasm for their candidate of choice.
So, if a potential voter will vote for Trump or Biden, fear of seeing either Donald Trump re-elected or Joe Biden elected as the next president is often a motivating factor. Among the respondents who picked Biden as their preferred candidate, 60% said that fear of the other candidate was a major motivating factor in voting for Biden.
Among the respondents who said Trump was their preferred candidate, 37% said that fear of the other candidate was a major motivating factor.
Independents are Biggest Group of Respondents
36.7% of those responding to this survey indicate they are independent voters. 33.2% indicate they are Republican voters and 23.5% indicate they are Democrats. 2.9% are Libertarians and 3.7% selected “other” as their party of choice.
More of the independent voters went for Biden over Trump. For Independents, 52% voted for Biden and 45% went for Trump.
Among Republicans, 81% went for Trump and 17% voted for Biden.
Among Democrats, 94.5% went for Biden and 5.4% preferred Trump.
Background of Respondents
59.8% of respondents are current federal employees; 34.9% are retired federal employees; 1.7% are retired military; and 2.6% have no affiliation with the federal workforce. A very small percentage are union staff members, active military, or federal contractors.
Summary
We are still approximately four months away from the election. In any national election, four months is a long time. In 2020, with riots, protests, COVID-19, unemployment figures, stock market prices and a variety of other factors that are fluctuating, the final result is up in the air from our current perspective.
FedSmith will run more surveys in the future to gauge the reaction of our readers.
Our thanks to everyone who took the time to participate in this survey.
