Who Would Win Between Trump and Obama? We Asked Voters

Voters across the country are narrowly split on who they’d rather see in the White House for the next four years: President Barack Obama or President-elect Donald Trump.

In a new Morning Consult/POLITICO poll, 45 percent of respondents said they would prefer Trump, compared with 44 percent who would like to see Obama continue beyond his two terms in office. The survey was conducted Dec. 28 through Dec. 29 among 2,000 registered voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

More from the Morning Consult/POLITICO poll: What Voters Want to Hear Most in Trump’s Inauguration Speech

And while it’s a virtual tie over who Americans want to see in the White House, Obama holds a 5-point edge when it comes to who voters think would win if they were able to run against each other. Forty-two percent percent picked Trump, and 47 percent said they thought Obama would win the hypothetical election. Obama’s margin of victory in that matchup is driven mainly by his support among independents, 44 percent of whom backed him, compared with 37 percent who support Trump.

More from the Morning Consult/POLITICO poll: Voters Prefer Traditional Communication From the President

Trump’s slight advantage in terms of who voters would rather see in office over the next four years is attributed in part by his comparatively consolidated partisan base. While 86 percent of Republicans want to see Trump serve as president for the next four years, 81 percent of Democrats said the same for Obama, who holds a 3-point lead over Trump with independents — 41 percent to 38 percent.

Along gender lines, 50 percent of men preferred Trump, compared with 48 percent of women who backed Obama. Younger voters, too, were more likely to prefer Obama to Trump: 61 percent of voters age 18 through 29 opted for Obama, while more than half of voters age 55 or older said they prefer Trump.

There were also major splits based on ethnicity: 51 percent of white voters wanted to see Trump lead the country for the next four years, a view shared by 38 percent of Hispanics and 16 percent of black voters. See the full results here.