In the middle of May, OH Predictive Insights (5/9-11; 600 AZ likely general election voters) released their Arizona statewide survey that received considerable attention in the political pundit community due to the Grand Canyon State’s importance in the presidential campaign. With its 11 electoral votes, Arizona is a must-win state for the Trump campaign. The OH poll found former Vice President Biden leading 50-43%, his largest margin to date, but little in the way of analysis accompanied the poll release.
Several days later, Redfield & Wilson Strategies released their Arizona poll taken during relatively the same time frame as OH Predictive Insights (5/10-14; 946 AZ likely general election voters) and found a much closer result: Biden, 45-41%. Now, another Phoenix-based pollster, HighGround, Inc., (5/18-22; 400 AZ likely voters), sees a race well within the statistical margin of error: Biden, 47.0 – 45.3%. The May trend again suggests that Arizona, while moving closer to the ideological center as its population continues to rapidly expand, is a domain very much in play for both candidates as we begin the general election campaign in earnest. Voters in Hawaii cast their ballots in a Democratic presidential nomination primary over the Memorial Day weekend that is not particularly important in the scope of campaign politics but did provide an interesting note.
In a first round of voting that included ten candidate names who had previously qualified for the Hawaii primary, former Vice President Joe Biden, the party’s presumptive nominee, received only 56% as compared to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT), 31%. In a second round, featuring only Biden and Sanders, the former VP’s total was still a rather unimpressive 63% for a candidate who has no active Democratic opposition. After US Rep. Justin Amash (L-MI) decided not to seek his new party’s presidential nomination, Libertarian Party delegates met in a Memorial Day weekend virtual convention to choose its national general election nominee. After multiple rounds of voting, Clemson University professor Jo Jorgensen prevailed, and will advance to the general election by constructing a majority coalition of delegates mostly from the South and Midwest. Ms. Jorgensen will have ballot access in all 50 states, but it is unlikely that she will be able to earn a national debate podium if and when those forums are scheduled.
Minnesota, the most loyal of all states to Democratic presidential candidates, was close in 2016 when Hillary Clinton carried the state with only a 1.5 percentage point margin. A new Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy survey (5/18-20; 800 MN registered voters) finds presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden leading President Trump, but the spread again suggests the state election could be close. According to M-D, Mr. Biden holds a 49-44% advantage. Minnesota carries 10 electoral votes. This state is a must-win for Mr. Biden.
Apparently, former US Attorney General and Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions realizes he is not getting back in President Trump’s good graces after the latter man reiterated his strong support for retired Auburn University head football coach Tommy Tuberville in the upcoming Republican Senate runoff election scheduled for July 14th. Mr. Sessions tweeted a response to President Trump that the law required his recusal from the Mueller investigation and that he (Trump) should be grateful the rule of law was preserved; action, he continued, that was principally responsible for the President being exonerated in the Russia investigation.
Previously, Mr. Sessions was attempting to emphasize the positive aspects of his stormy relationship with the President, but that was clearly not translating into a rise in his polling numbers. According to the latest surveys, Mr. Tuberville still maintains a strong lead in the runoff election. The winner faces Sen. Doug Jones (D) in the Fall. The Republican National Committee and California Republican Party have filed a federal lawsuit in the Eastern District of California attempting to declare unlawful Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) executive order that all voters be mailed absentee ballots for the coming general election. Previously, absentee ballot request forms were sent prior to a qualified voter receiving an actual ballot.
Among other points, the lawsuit contends that, “automatically mail(ing) ballots to inactive voters…invites fraud, coercion, theft, and otherwise illegitimate voting. Fraudulent and invalid votes dilute the votes of honest citizens and deprive them of their right to vote in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.” On the other end of the voting law spectrum, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Oklahoma Democratic Party have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the state’s absentee ballot law that requires an applicant to have their signature notarized. Earlier, the Oklahoma state Supreme Court ruled that the government document notarization law did not apply to absentee ballots, but the legislature quickly passed a new law specifically requiring notarization directly in response to the high court’s ruling.
Now, the plaintiffs have gone to federal court asking that the notarization requirement be eliminated, and then adding that the state should prepay all postage for mailed ballots, and that votes received up to a week after the election should be accepted and counted. Currently, Oklahoma law requires all absentee ballots to be received no later than Election Day. Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Heath/Rockwall) quickly resigned his seat in the House after the Senate confirmed him to become the country’s Director of Intelligence, meaning we have a new vacancy. Immediately after the resignation announcement, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) announced that he would not call a special election to fill the balance of the current term.
Therefore, in a similar situation with CA-50 (Rep. Duncan Hunter resigned) and NC-11 (Rep. Mark Meadows resigned to become White House chief of staff), the TX-4 seat will remain without representation until the next Congress convenes. Republican Party of Texas chairman James Dickey said the 4th District Executive Committees will meet in convention on August 8th to choose a replacement nominee for the November ballot. Since Mr. Ratcliffe had already won re-nomination for this year’s general election, the Executive Committee is forced to act. Because the seat is safely Republican, whoever emerges from the Committee vote will become the new Representative next year. The Hodas & Associates survey research firm went into the field to test the swing Great Lakes/Mid-Atlantic states and produced surprisingly inconsistent data. Conducting surveys among sampling universes of 600 likely general election voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin in early May, Hodas finds the results very different than the three close wins Donald Trump recorded in these places four years ago. While former Vice President Joe Biden posts wide leads in Wisconsin (51-42%) and Michigan (50-42%), he surprisingly trails President Trump in Pennsylvania (46-50%).
Interestingly, despite the lopsided totals in Hodas’ Wisconsin and Michigan data, President Trump would still have enough to win the national election with this Great Lakes/Mid-Atlantic performance. If he holds his five core states of Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina, the President would be re-elected if he were to carry only Pennsylvania so long as any other previously won state doesn’t turn against him. A pair of Michigan US Senate polls both find Sen. Gary Peters (D) leading his re-election campaign against challenger John James (R), but Hodas & Associates 5/1-5; 600 MI likely voters) and Change Research (5/11-17; 3,070 MI likely voters; online) see very different margins.
Hodas gives Sen. Peters a big lead, 48-36%, a wider spread than other pollsters have found, and Change projects a five-point spread between the two men, 48-43%, also in the incumbent’s favor. The latter ballot test result is more consistent with other previously released data, however. |
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