Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz’s team tried to defend his potential presidential candidacy by revealing internal polling data that shows he would help President Trump win reelection.
An internal poll from the Schultz team provided to NBC News shows him at 17 percent in a three-way race against Trump and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren or California Sen. Kamala Harris, while Trump leads Warren and Harris 33-32.
With 19 percent of respondents undecided, the poll shows that Schultz candidacy would significantly increase Trump’s chances of winning. Previous polls without Schultz involved showed Warren narrowly leading Trump with a huge chunk of voters undecided.
Another poll by Schultz’s team found that an unnamed “centrist independent” candidate would receive 25-30 percent of the vote while Trump is at 29-30 and Warren is at 26-30.
Independent polling shows worse picture for Schultz:
It’s unclear where Schultz’s numbers came from but a Change Research poll found that regardless of whether Americans are open to a third-party candidate, they are not open to a Schultz third-party run.
The poll found that just 4 percent of all voters view Schultz favorably among voters that have heard of him, which most voters said they have not.
The poll also found that in a hypothetical three-way matchup, Schult would take “an average of four points away from what the Democratic candidate receives in a two-way race, while taking just 1 [percent] away from Donald Trump.”
Schultz complains about anti-billionaire bias:
Schultz complained about the flak billionaires like himself have received in recent months and urged people to refer to billionaires as “people of means.”
“The moniker billionaire now has become the catchphrase,” he told CNBC. “I would rephrase that and I would say that ‘people of means’ have been able to leverage their wealth and their interests in ways that are unfair.”
