Previously, the Republican Party of Texas sent emails to voters urging them to vote for Donald Trump in the 2020 election. The emails reportedly warned that the president could lose the 2020 election without support from the southern U.S. state amid fears of a reported Texas demographic shift from Republican to Democrat. Despite these fears, a new poll conducted by the University of Texas at Tyler (UTTyler) suggests that the state’s voters prefer Trump over all of the top challengers from the Democratic Party included in the poll, Newsweek reports.
According to the poll, which surveyed 1,093 registered Texas voters between November 5 to November 14 and asked who they would vote for that day, Trump is ahead of Democratic front-runner Joe Biden by 5 percentage points and ahead of Bernie Sanders by four points. The president is even further ahead of Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro, holding an 11-point lead on both, and leading Kamala Harris and Pete Buttigieg by 13 points.
Following the publishing of Newsweek ‘s article on the results, the Texas Democratic Party contacted the publication for a statement.
“Poll after poll shows the same result: This election is razor-thin. Republicans are scared. We can’t let up. Texas Democrats must keep organizing.”
The Texas shift toward Democratic demographics reportedly comes as the Hispanic, black, and young, urban populations continue to grow. Such demographics are typically good news for Democrats — 73 percent of people of color voted for Democrat Beto O’Rourke over Republican Ted Cruz in the state’s 2018 United States Senate election.
Latest Texas poll from @UTTyler — @JoeBiden has clear lead in primary, while he and @BernieSanders come closest to Trump in head-to-heads pic.twitter.com/nNjDr78U8Y
— Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) November 18, 2019
Curiously, the poll did not ask respondents who they would choose if their choice were Trump or Andrew Yang, despite the entrepreneur currently polling at 3 percent — more than double Castro’s 1.3 percent. But the poll did reveal that Yang was the top choice for voters in the 1.5 percent of respondents who were Democrat and the 3.3 percent of independent voters who “lean” Democrat.
Back in September, Yang beat Trump in a hypothetical head-to-head by eight points, despite polling at 2.7 percent at the time, putting him in sixth place. Yang has previously spoken about his support from former Trump supporters and believes it is primarily due to his focus on working-class struggles.
Per Newsweek , an Emerson survey conducted from September 29 to October 2 found that Biden, Sanders, and Warren all beat Trump in hypothetical head-to-heads in Ohio, which is a crucial swing state that Trump won in 2016. While Biden and Sanders gained a six-point lead over Trump, Warren beat the president by four percent.
