Pete Buttigieg And Joe Biden Pose Threat To Donald Trump In Traditionally Republican Arizona, Poll Says
As President Donald Trump continues to face an ongoing impeachment inquiry battle which has now been taken up by the House Judiciary Committee for review before the matter could be passed to the U.S. Senate, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and former Vice President Joe Biden reeled in somewhat surprising poll results in the traditionally red state of Arizona.
According to The Hill, a poll released on Monday by OH Predictive Insights revealed that both 2020 Democratic candidates virtually matched Trump’s polling numbers in the heavily-Republican state, if the survey’s 3.9 percent margin of error is taken into account.
The mock-up poll that pitted Trump versus Biden indicated that the president scored 46 percent of support, while Biden was close behind him at 44 percent. Buttigieg’s version of the hypothetical match-up had him at 43 percent to Trump’s 45 percent, meaning both candidates were in a statistical tie with the president.
While that may remain good news for both 2020 hopefuls, the polling results do mark a decline for Biden, who in a previous iteration of the survey, beat Trump’s 44 percent with 49 percent in favor of the former vice president, marking a five-point slip.
In contrast, Buttigieg, who has experienced a significant surge in a number of early-state voting polls — most notably in Iowa and New Hampshire — gained six points from the earlier version.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders saw a decrease in his numbers in the state, only managing to garner 34 percent of support to the president’s 47 percent in their matchup. That was still only a slight decrease of three points from a previous version of the poll, though Trump managed to gain a point, giving him the clear lead over the progressive 2020 hopeful.
Likewise, Sen. Elizabeth Warren also lost versus Trump in the poll, scoring 41 percent to his 47 percent, though her results were virtually the same as they were in the May version.
Jacob Joss, a data analyst for OH Predictive Insights, claimed that Trump’s apparent ceiling in the state poll could provide an opportunity for a Democrat to win the state, though it would still be rare.
“No Democrat has earned more than 47 percent in a presidential election here since LBJ in 1964, but given this president’s apparent ceiling, that might just be enough to win when November rolls around,” Joss said.
Democrats will have a chance to find out which one of them makes the strongest case to persuade Arizona voters on March 17, the date of their primary vote in the state.
