Recently data from across the country and in key battleground states have forecast a strong advantage for Democratic nominee-designate Joe Biden over President Trump. A new Change Research polling series of seven polls, six stemming from their national polling sample (6/12-14; 1,250 US likely general election voters with subsets in AZ, FL, MI, NC, PA, and WI) finds the President gaining in his must-win states.
The national ballot test continues to give Biden a wide 51-41% national margin, but, as is the case with such polling, the Democrats’ overwhelming advantage in the big states skews the overall popular vote count. Additionally, as we saw in 2016, the national count is irrelevant in electing a US President. In the key states, however, Change Research, which is a Democratic pollster, finds Trump to be within 1-4 points in the key battlegrounds of Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and down by seven points in Florida. It is these battlegrounds that will truly decide the November election. 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. Tricia Zunker (D), the Wausau School Board member who lost a wide 57-43% to Rep-Elect Tom Tiffany (R-Minocqua) in the special election earlier this month, announced that she will file to run for the full term in the regular primary (August 11th) and general election. Candidate filing is fast approaching on June 1st. Considering the size of his May 12th victory, Rep-Elect Tiffany will be rated a heavy favorite to win the full term.
CNN conducted a nationwide political poll (5/7-10; 1,112 US adults; 1,001 registered voters; 302 over sample in 15 battleground states) and compared the national results to those found in 15 battleground states. The latter group included the typical swing states like Florida, North Carolina, Michigan, and Wisconsin, but also added Colorado, New Mexico, and Virginia, places where former Vice President Joe Biden has developed significant leads.
On the national count, as found in most other polls, Mr. Biden leads President Trump, 51-46%, but the numbers are virtually reversed, 52-45%, in Mr. Trump’s favor within the all-important battleground states. Republican state Senator Tom Tiffany (R-Minocqua) recorded a landslide 57-43% special election win over Democratic school board member Tricia Zunker last night and will finish the remainder of resigned Rep. Sean Duffy’s (R-Wausau) term. Rep-Elect Tiffany will now file for the regular primary election before June 1st. The Wisconsin primary is scheduled for August 11th. The new Congressman will not likely face major opposition during the regular election cycle.
Three polls from key 2020 presidential states were released yesterday and yielded rather predictable results. In Wisconsin, Marquette Law School released their quarterly statewide survey (5/3-7; 811 WI registered voters) and found former Vice President Joe Biden edging President Trump, 46-43%. In Ohio, Emerson College (5/8-10; 725 OH registered voters) sees the President topping Mr. Biden, 51-49%, in a poll where all respondents were pushed to make a choice. In the Lone Star State of Texas, Emerson (5/8-10; 800 TX registered voters) gives the President a 52-48% advantage.
Today is Election Day in three states as two special congressional elections will be decided, and Nebraska holds its regular primary.
The California special election will fill the seat that former Rep. Katie Hill (D) resigned due to scandal in the latter part of 2019. The candidates are state Assemblywoman Christy Smith (D-Newhall) and retired Navy fighter pilot Mike Garcia (R). Both parties have spent heavily, and the candidates have raised and spent over $2 million apiece. Additionally, several points of controversy has arisen here as Smith was caught on camera belittling Garcia’s military experience, whether or not the all-mail voting system with limited polling places has been corrupted, and if the final result in a politically marginal district is a harbinger of what we might see nationally in November. Don’t expect a quick result. With California’s system of allowing ballots to come in days after the election and having until July 15th to certify the vote, tonight’s vote will just be the beginning of what figures to be a rather long process. Regardless of the outcome, both candidates have qualified for the ballot in the November general election and will face each other again. Late last year, Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wausau) resigned his seat for family reasons and the successor will surely be chosen tonight. In a district that stretches through most of northwest Wisconsin, Republican state Sen. Tom Tiffany (R-Minocqua) is the heavy favorite going into today’s balloting in a district that has become securely Republican during the current decade. The Democratic nominee, who has only spent about $350,000, is Wausau School Board member Tricia Zunker, but she has not attracted much in the way of national support. Expect a Tiffany victory in a vote plateau that should exceed 53 percent. With Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) in no danger from a primary challenge today, the most hotly contested race is Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District Democratic primary. Three candidates including 2018 nominee Kara Eastman, who scored 49% of the vote against two-term Rep. Don Bacon (R-Papillon/Omaha) and returns for a re-match, are battling for the party nod. The other two contenders are Ann Ashford, wife of former Congressman Brad Ashford (D-Omaha), and restaurant manager Gladys Harrison. Ms. Eastman is favored to win tonight’s primary, and the 2nd District general election again promises to be a tight affair in one of the five districts throughout Nebraska and Maine that could yield an extra electoral vote to a presidential candidate. A series of pollsters conducted several recent surveys in some of President Trump’s core and swing states. The just-published results suggest that all are turning former Vice President Joe Biden’s way. Fox News, Ipsos, and Quinnipiac University were all in the field during the April 15-21 period, interviewing voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Florida.
The latter state, one of the most important for President Trump, finds him trailing Mr. Biden, 46-42%, according to Quinnipiac University. Mr. Biden leads in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin by eight (Michigan; both Fox News and Ispos), eight and six (Pennsylvania; Fox News and Ispos), and three (Wisconsin; Ipsos) percentage points. We’ll begin observing the numbers more seriously when the candidates are able to resume active campaigning. Then, we will have a better idea if Mr. Biden’s early advantages are reliable and strong. The Democratic polling firm Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group (4/6-8; 301 WI likely general election voters) finds a virtual tie between Mr. Biden and President Trump in another nationally significant state. Though this poll is based upon a small sample of only 301 respondents, it does forecast a close contest in a state projected to be tight. Therefore, these numbers do appear realistic. The results find Mr. Biden leading President Trump, 48-47%. In 2016, Mr. Trump carried the state over Hillary Clinton with a 47.2 – 46.5% margin.
When the US Supreme Court ruled that the Wisconsin absentee ballot deadline could not be extended, thus reversing a lower court ruling, the SCOTUS surprisingly left in place a provision from the original directive that mandated county clerks not release their vote totals until April 13th. Therefore, we will have to wait until next Monday to see if former Vice President Joe Biden or Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) claimed the lion’s share of the state’s 84 bound first ballot Democratic National Convention delegates.
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