Is Biden Really Democrats’ Best Bet?

This week in Detroit, 20 Democratic candidates will face off in the party’s second round of presidential-primary debates. Despite what was widely considered a shaky performance in the first debate last month, former vice president Joe Biden continues to maintain a healthy lead in the race.

But is Biden really the best bet for Democrats who care much more about getting Donald Trump out of the Oval Office than they do about getting their preferred progressive into it?

If you’re inclined to put much stock in public-opinion polls this far out from an election, then a few recent surveys suggest he might be. A new Quinnipiac poll of Ohio — a crucial swing state where Trump defeated

Hillary Clinton by a margin of about eight points in 2016 — showed Biden as the only Democratic candidate leading Trump in a head-to-head matchup, 50–42 percent. The same poll had Trump tied with California senator Kamala Harris and South Bend, Ind. mayor Pete Buttigieg, and running just a point ahead of Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Cory Booker of New Jersey.

Among Ohio Democrats and Democratic-leaning independent voters, meanwhile, Biden had a significant edge on his primary competitors, with 31-percent support compared to 14 percent for Sanders and Harris and 13 percent for Warren. Biden led the field in every demographic category but one: voters describing themselves as “very liberal,” 25 percent of whom prefer Harris, followed by Sanders at 21 percent, Warren at 18, and Biden at 16. His lead shrunk a bit among white voters with college degrees, who preferred him by only five points to both Harris and Warren. But he dominated among Democratic and Democratic-leaning black voters and moderates in the Buckeye State.

So far this year, that has been a trend in Biden’s favor across a number of state polls, most recently in South Carolina, where Monmouth found Biden crushing his competitors among black voters, with 51-percent support. The next closest candidate, Harris, came in at just 12 percent.