President Donald Trump has a strong shot at re-election in 2020 if the economy stays strong and Republicans stay loyal, according to pollsters who conducted a survey for NBC News and The Wall Street Journal.
"As long as these economic numbers look like this, that always keeps an incumbent president in the race," said Bill McInturff, a GOP pollster.
Eighty-eight percent of Republicans approve of the job President Donald Trump is doing, according to the poll, and 53 percent of Americans say they believe the United States will not be in a recession in the next year.
Still, just 41 percent say they would vote for Trump in 2020, compared with 48 who said they would pick the Democratic candidate. So far, seven lawmakers have announced intentions to run for president, including Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., Kamala Harris, D-Calif., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.
Fred Yang, a Democratic pollster, said once an official opponent is picked, though, the race will change.
"Another lesson we painfully learned from 2016 is that elections are a choice between candidates and not a referendum on one candidate," he said.
The NBC/WSJ poll was conducted Feb. 24-27 among 720 registered voters, 247 Democratic primary voters and 210 Republican primary voters.