Poll Shows Joe Biden Taking Wide Lead Over Donald Trump In Senate Battleground States
According to a poll from Hart Research Associates published on Friday, the Democratic Party‘s presumptive presidential nominee, Joe Biden, is opening up a wide lead over President Donald Trump in key Senate battlegrounds.
Per The Hill, the poll shows that Biden holds a nine-point lead over Trump in Iowa, Maine, North Carolina, Arizona, Colorado, and Montana. The former vice president is polling at 50 percent, and Trump is at 41 percent. All six states are represented in the Senate by vulnerable Republican incumbents.
Sens. Joni Ernst of Iowa, Susan Collins of Maine, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Martha McSally of Arizona, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Steve Daines of Montana will all have to fend off strong Democratic challengers in November. Democrats would need to flip only four seats to take control of the upper chamber. According to the survey, Democratic challengers are polling five points ahead of GOP incumbents.
However, Republicans seem poised to pull a few upsets of their own. The race in California’s 25th Congressional District seems competitive, with Republican Mike Garcia well-positioned to fill a vacancy left by former Democratic congresswoman Katie Hill. Private polling reportedly suggests that the GOP has a good chance of winning a House seat in the deep blue state.
Trump appears to be paying close attention to the race. On Saturday, the president expressed concern over Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent executive order. Newsom issued an executive order to automatically mail ballots for the 2020 presidential election. According to Trump, this and Newsom’s decision to change rules prove that the Democrats are looking to rig the race.
In a Twitter message, Trump wrote that “the Democrats, who fought like crazy to get all mail in only ballots, and succeeded, have just opened a voting booth in the most Democrat area in the State. They are trying to steal another election. It’s all rigged out there. These votes must not count.”
The Hart Research Associates poll investigated public opinion on this issue, establishing that the vast majority of voters in the six battleground states — 85 percent of them — say mail-in voting should be an option due to the coronavirus pandemic. Sixty-seven percent of Trump supporters are in favor of vote-by-mail, as are nearly all Democrats.
Furthermore, 56 percent of those who plan on voting Republican believe the incumbents should support mail-in voting. Sixty-two percent would view a GOP incumbent’s decision to oppose the initiative unfavorably, and 90 percent say such a decision would be driven by politics. Overall, 59 percent of voters say that mail-in voting is not vulnerable to fraud.
