A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll suggests that Sanders could be a riskier nominee than his supporters are willing to admit. In a national trial heat with Trump, Sanders led 48 percent to 42 percent among registered voters. Yet when the playing field was narrowed to the 10 states that were closest in the 2016 presidential election and that will likely decide 2020 — Michigan, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, Minnesota, Nevada, Maine, North Carolina and Arizona — Sanders’s lead over Trump was slashed in half (48 percent to 45 percent). That 3-point gap was within the margin of error.

In contrast, former Vice President Joe Biden led Trump by 9 points nationally (50 percent to 41 percent) and by 7 points (50 percent to 43 percent) in the battleground states.

Both Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (47 percent to 45 percent) and former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg (46 percent to 44 percent) performed about as well as Sanders in the battleground states. The weakest performer was former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (43 percent to 43 percent).

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Likewise, Sanders ran far behind Biden among swing voters, defined here as voters who switched to Democratic House or Senate candidates in the 2018 midterms after casting their ballots for Trump in 2016. Biden beat Trump by 12 points (51 percent to 39 percent) among these voters, who helped Democrats flip 41 seats and regain control of the House in 2018. Sanders beat Trump by 4 points (48 percent to 44 percent).

That polling suggests Sanders’s image today is not a liability, but there is no guarantee his support would withstand sustained general election attacks calling him a socialist. (Sanders typically identifies as a democratic socialist, but in the past he has identified as simply a socialist.) While Biden, Buttigieg and other Democrats also have not faced the same level of scrutiny of their records as a presidential nominee would get, polling is crystal clear about Americans’ negativity toward socialism.

A January Gallup poll found less than half of Americans, 45 percent, said they would vote for a socialist for president, even if they were well qualified and from their own political party. Being a socialist was the least acceptable of 12 traits measured in the poll — 60 percent said they would vote for an atheist, 69 percent for someone who is over age 70, and 93 percent for a woman....

This month, an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll found 46 percent of registered voters saying they would be “very uncomfortable” with a socialist candidate for president, and another 21 percent saying they “have some reservations about” that attribute.

On a basic measure, a December Fox News poll found 31 percent of registered voters saying they have a favorable view of socialism, while 53 percent were unfavorable. Ratings of socialism were up from 25 percent in early 2019, but ratings of capitalism remained far higher, with 57 percent rating it favorably, the same as last year...…

Overall, 53 percent of Americans said Sanders’s identity wouldn’t make a difference in their vote, while 35 percent said they would be more likely to oppose him and 10 percent would be more likely to support him.

Most of the “more likely to oppose” group appears committed to supporting Trump. Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) supported Trump over all six Democratic candidates in head-to-head matchups, a strong signal that they had little chance of supporting Sanders anyway. Another 10 percent of the “more likely to oppose” group supported all six Democratic candidates against Trump, including Sanders, a group that is also probably committed.

But nearly 1 in 5 of the respondents who said Sanders’s identity as a democratic socialist or socialist made them less likely to support him were toss-up voters — people who did not consistently support Trump or Democrats in six head-to-head matchups. This group makes up 6 percent of adults and registered voters alike, and while not massive, is large enough to swing a presidential election.