Trump falls into virtual tie with Biden, Warren in Arizona poll
Aug 22, 2019, 9:21 AM
(AP Photos)
(AP Photos)
PHOENIX – A pair of Democrats have pulled into a virtual tie with President Donald Trump in a poll of likely Arizona voters that was released Thursday.
Former Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren have closed the gap in a hypothetical head-to-head 2020 general election match-up with the Republican incumbent in OH Predictive Insights’ survey of 600.
The survey, taken Aug. 13-14, had Biden leading Trump, 45%-43%, and Warren trailing, 44%-43%. The tie comes from factoring in the poll’s 4% margin of error.
In May, Biden topped Trump in a similar poll, 49%-44%. In that same poll, Trump led Warren, 47%-42%.
Of the top six Democratic candidates, only Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders trailed Trump by double figures, at 10 percentage points.
“I think we shouldn’t be surprised,” conservative political consultant Stan Barnes of Phoenix told KTAR News 92.3 FM. “When it comes to polls, Donald Trump always underpolls.”
(OH Predictive Insights)
Barnes pointed out that in the 2016 presidential election, Trump’s poll numbers were outpaced by Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
He won Arizona by more than 3 percentage points.
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“The polls don’t always reflect reality,” Barnes said.
KTAR News political expert Mike O’Neil said most observers rated Arizona “very much a toss-up state in the presidential election.”
The poll surveyed 234 Republicans, 163 independents and 203 Democrats. Of that group, 60% were from Maricopa County.
Earlier this week, a poll showed that more than half of Arizona’s likely voters disapproved of the job Trump was doing.
“The biggest red flag is that Trump doesn’t cross the 50 percent threshold in any of these hypothetical match-ups and is hovering in the low-to-mid forties,” pollster Mike Noble said in a statement.
KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Jim Cross contributed to this report.
