According to polls by the New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and Siena College, Democratic Senate candidates are ahead of their Republican rivals in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and are well ahead of President Biden in key states where he continues to struggle.
Polling of registered voters in the battleground suggests the president’s troubles against former President Donald J. Trump may not be enough to topple other Democrats, particularly Senate incumbents who face lesser-known Republicans.
There aren’t many ticket splitters – about 10 percent of Trump voters support the Democratic Senate candidate in the four states, while about 5 percent of Biden supporters support the Republican.
But this number of voters is enough to give the Democrats a chance of entering the Senate, where they currently have a one-seat majority. To maintain control, Democrats would have to capture all of the contested Senate seats and win the White House.
[You can find the full results of the polls, including the exact questions that were asked, here. You can see answers to common questions about our polling process here.]
In Pennsylvania, Senator Bob Casey, a Democrat, has the support of 46 percent of voters, compared with 41 percent who say they support his Republican challenger, wealthy financial executive David McCormick, even though Mr. Trump has a slim lead in a top job. Neck-and-neck with Mr. Biden, 47 percent to 44 percent.
In Wisconsin, the Democratic incumbent, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, has a larger lead of 49 percent to 40 percent over Republican banker Eric Hovde. Mr. Biden gained slightly over Mr. Trump, 47 percent to 45 percent.
In Nevada, where Mr. Biden is struggling the most, Senator Jacky Rosen, a Democrat, narrowly leads her Republican challenger, Sam Brown, a wounded combat veteran, 40 percent to 38 percent, with 23 percent of registered voters undecided.
In Arizona, the only battleground state with an open Senate seat, Rep. Ruben Gallego, a Phoenix-area Democrat, leads Kari Lake, the former Republican news anchor closely aligned with Mr. Trump, 45 percent to 41 percent, 14 percent undecided. Mr. Trump leads Mr. Biden 49 percent to 42 percent in Arizona.
The contrasting results underscore the power of incumbency and how it appears to be undone when a former president challenges a sitting president. One voter after another expressed satisfaction with the Senate Democrat incumbent and expressed an almost complete lack of knowledge about the Republican challengers.
“Jacky Rosen has been around a long time,” said Brian Dickinson, a 25-year-old registered Democrat in Las Vegas who said he was considering splitting his electorate and voting for Mr. Trump. “I think she’s a very good Democrat.”
In Pennsylvania, 23 percent of Republicans viewed Mr. Casey favorably, while just 6 percent had a favorable view of Mr. Biden.
Casey “is a name I’ve heard,” said Harry Wirebach, a 56-year-old veteran and independent voter in Croydon, Pennsylvania. Mr. Casey was first elected to the Senate in 2006; his father, Bob Casey, was twice governor of Pennsylvania.
But that Democratic edge has not boosted Mr. Biden’s standing, and very few respondents expressed no opinion about the front-runners for president.
“I would vote for a roadkill possum if that was an alternative to those three,” Mr. Wirebach said of Mr. Biden, Mr. Trump and independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
In fact, many stakeholders said her presidential election left them angry and dissatisfied.
“I’m not a party person. I’m more pro-state, and Gallego has done a good job for the state,” said Terry Crabtree, a disabled 52-year-old from Tonopah, Ariz., in Maricopa County, who runs a food truck called Carnivore Creations. “I can’t stand Biden. I think he should be in prison. I think Trump should be in prison too. I hate it when I’m given both of those options.”
The small Democratic advantages in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin still give the party only a slim chance of retaining control of the Senate. With the retirement of Sen. Joe Manchin III, a Democrat in deep-red West Virginia, Democrats would need to win all of the contested Senate seats as well as the White House to give Vice President Kamala Harris the tie-breaking vote next year. Even if Democrats won all other Senate contests, a Trump victory and the loss of Mr. Manchin’s seat would give Republicans control of the chamber.
Michigan, another battleground state, will also have a Senate contest to fill the seat of retiring Democrat Debbie Stabenow. However, because the Republican nominee will not be determined until the August primary, Michigan voters were not asked their preference in the Times/Siena poll.
Two other key Senate races are not represented in the presidential election states surveyed. Senators Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio must win re-election in their heavily Republican states this November to give Democrats a chance to maintain their majority.
The Democratic Senate candidates are stronger than Mr. Biden among key Democratic voters such as young voters, black voters and Hispanic voters. Latino voters once again appear to be playing a crucial role, both at the presidential level and in Senate voting. Mr. Trump won 42 percent of the Hispanic vote in battleground states, but Senate Republicans only got 29 percent.
“I like what she’s basically doing,” Joseph Gonzalez, a 60-year-old Hispanic truck driver from Milwaukee, said of Ms. Baldwin, who is seeking a third term in the Senate. “I don’t like what President Biden is doing. He is failing the United States.”
Democratic senators, who have plenty of money and spend big on the airwaves, are already distancing themselves from Mr. Biden. In a new ad from Mr Casey, workers wearing hard hats declare: “Our own government has turned its back on us” by using imported steel, without saying which government did so. It credits Mr. Casey with a “Buy America” provision in the president’s massive infrastructure bill, a provision for which Mr. Biden also claims credit.
Not all stakeholders sided with Mr. Trump and the Democratic Senate candidate.
Benjamin Johnsen, a 37-year-old truck driver from Superior, Wisconsin, said he has supported Mr. Biden since he served as Barack Obama’s vice president and trusts him to defend the country against terrorism. But he said he wants Republicans to control the Senate and keep taxes low, so he is leaning toward Mr. Hovde, the Republican challenging Ms. Baldwin.
But more typical was Chris Myers, a 52-year-old union construction worker in Hartford, Wisconsin. Mr. Myers said he had never seen more construction than what was now underway in the state. In fact, he said, he is helping build Microsoft’s $3 billion artificial intelligence data center, which Mr. Biden announced in Wisconsin on Wednesday as a promise of his administration.
But Mr. Myers said he would split his vote between supporting Ms. Baldwin, whom he praised for “doing some good things for the state,” and Mr. Trump, saying: “I like his go-get-em.” , take-no.” – crap attitude. Mr. Myers particularly complained that Mr. Biden’s visit last week to celebrate the creation of Mr. Myers’ job ultimately led to a slowdown in concrete trucks.
In virtually any Senate contest, enough undecided voters could tip the race in favor of Republican challengers. That’s a stark contrast to the presidential campaign, where battleground voters say their views of Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump are more limited.
“I’m definitely voting for Donald Trump,” said Wesley Scarbrough, a 22-year-old Hispanic electrician from Las Vegas. But although he told a pollster that he preferred Ms. Rosen, he said in a follow-up interview that he wasn’t sure. “Honestly, with the Senate,” he said, “I don’t really know.”
Asked why Hispanic voters in Nevada are turning down Trump, Mr. Scarbrough replied: “The border crisis has a lot to do with it.” He said migrants crossing the border were “lazy and just looking for free things.”
Andrew Trunsky contributed reporting.
Here are the key things you should know about conducting these surveys:
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We spoke to 4,097 registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin from April 28 to May 9, 2024.
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Our surveys are conducted over the phone and with live interviewers in both English and Spanish. Almost 95 percent of respondents for this survey were contacted via a cell phone. You can see the exact questions that were asked and the order in which they were asked here.
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Voters are selected for the survey from a list of registered voters. The list contains information about the demographic characteristics of each registered voter, so we can ensure we are reaching the right number of voters for each party, race and region. For these surveys, we made nearly 500,000 calls to approximately 410,000 voters.
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To further ensure that results reflect the entire electorate and not just those willing to respond to a survey, we include respondents from demographic groups that are underrepresented among survey respondents, such as: B. People without a university degree carry more weight. For more information about the characteristics of our respondents and the weighted sample, see “Sample Composition” on the methodology page.
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When the states are combined, the margin of sampling error among registered voters is plus or minus 1.8 percentage points. Each state poll has a margin of error ranging from plus or minus 3.6 points in Pennsylvania to plus or minus 4.6 points in Georgia. In theory, this means that the results should largely reflect the views of the general population, although many other challenges create additional sources of error. When calculating the difference between two values - such as a candidate’s lead in a race – the margin of error is twice as large.
Full results and detailed methodology can be found here. If you would like to learn more about how and why we conduct our surveys, you can see answers to frequently asked questions and submit your own questions here.
The New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College Poll in Pennsylvania was funded by a grant from the Lenfest Institute for Journalism. The survey was designed and conducted independently of the institute.
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2024-05-13 07:00:50
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