Texas Poll Shows Donald Trump With Narrow 4-Point Lead Over Joe Biden For 2020 Presidential Election
A new poll out of Texas shows that it could be a fierce battle this fall as both President Donald Trump and presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden fight to win the state in the 2020 presidential election. Trump won the state in 2016, but the latest numbers suggest that those 38 electoral votes may not be a given in the president’s quest to remain in office.
The latest poll numbers come from The Texas Politics Project via the University of Texas at Austin. The polling resulted in a four-point lead for Trump over Biden, with a margin of error of 2.89 percent.
The poll of Texas voters showed 48 percent likely to vote for Trump, 44 percent for Biden, and 8 percent remained undecided. As would typically be expected, Republicans overwhelmingly supported Trump, at 91 percent, while Democrats were behind Biden at 93 percent.
Independents surveyed were quite split. The Texas poll showed 41 percent currently supported Trump, 27 percent planned to vote for Biden, and 32 percent were undecided.
In 2016, Trump won Texas by nearly nine points against Hillary Clinton. There have been signs that the state was becoming more and more competitive for the Democrats, and the president’s approval rating has slipped several points over the last few months across the state.
Current polling shows Trump with 46 percent of Texans approving of the job he is doing, versus a 48 percent disapproval rate. In April, the same poll resulted in a 49 percent job approval for the president and 45 percent disapproval.
When split by party affiliation, Trump had strong approval from 62 percent of the Texans polled. Another 24 percent approved somewhat, versus 87 percent of Democrats strongly disapproving of the president’s performance at this point. Just 6 percent of Democrats fell into the category of somewhat disapproving of the president’s performance.
Even with a fairly tight four-point lead, the site 270 to Win rates Texas as a state that leans toward a Trump win. Their statistics do show that the state has shifted to be more competitive in recent years. While Trump beat Clinton by about nine points, Mitt Romney beat former President Barack Obama by almost 16 points in 2012.
Obama lost to John McCain by about 12 points in 2008. As would typically be expected, former President George W. Bush easily won his home state of Texas in both 2004 and 2000. He won by more than 20 points each time when going up against John Kerry and Al Gore.
These Texas polling results come out shortly after a national poll showed that the majority of Americans believe that the United States is currently off-track under Trump’s leadership.
Several battleground states aside from Texas are looking favorable for Biden. Arizona, Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina all went for Trump in 2016, but Biden is currently leading in all six.
People will be watching Texas polling quite closely over the next few months. If Biden stays within four points or closes that gap even further, it could spell trouble for Trump’s reelection chances.
