Sanders: Strongest candidate to beat Trump?

On May 21, 2016 Bernie Sanders' campaign released the following statement:

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M – Bernie Sanders continues to be the strongest candidate in the race to keep Donald Trump out of the White House, holding in recent head-to-head polls an average lead three times the size of Hillary Clinton’s over the real estate mogul.

“Democrats seeking a presidential nominee to lead their party to victory in November should take notice of the overwhelming preponderance of data demonstrating that Bernie Sanders is the strongest Democratic candidate to defeat Donald Trump,” according to analysis by Sanders’ pollster Ben Tulchin.

Some of Sanders’ strength over Trump comes from the Vermont senator’s large support from young Americans and independents, both critical voting blocs for Democrats in a general election.

But another important reason for his large leads over the Republican nominee is Sanders’ popularity among voters. “This positive profile stands in stark contrast to both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, who are both deeply unpopular,” Tulchin writes in a new memo released by the campaign. “Clinton’s favorables are 31 percent to 52 percent unfavorable while Trump is slightly more unpopular.”

The result is that Sanders polls stronger than Clinton in key battleground states like Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania. “Sanders leads Trump by wider margins than Clinton in all of the public polling that has been conducted in swing states over the past few months,” the memo finds.

To read the memo, click here.

The Gayly - 5/21/2016 @ 6:15 p.m. CDT