Donald Trump Loses Battleground State Poll for First Time in Six Months
Donald Trump walks to speak to the press at the end of the day during his trial for allegedly covering up hush money payments at Manhattan Criminal Court on May 7, 2024 in New York City. A poll shows that Joe Biden is narrowly beating Donald Trump in Arizona, ahead of the presidential election.
Donald Trump is polling behind Joe Biden in Arizona for the first time in six months.
According to a poll by Data Orbital on Tuesday, Biden would garner 38.8 percent of the vote share, while Trump would get 38.1 percent if an election were held at the time of sampling. While this lead is incredibly small and within the poll’s margin error, it represents the first time Biden has taken the lead in an Arizona state poll since November, according to analysis by polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight.
For instance, an April Echelon Insights survey of 2,401 registered voters, conducted for the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, showed that Trump was ahead of Biden in Arizona by 51 percent to 45 percent.
In March, the former president and the incumbent won enough primary races to secure, respectively, the Republican and Democratic nominations in the 2024 presidential election. Polls have so far shown that the results will be tight as the pair are statistically tied in most surveys or enjoying only marginal leads.
Arizona has historically leaned towards Republicans, but it backed Biden in 2020 and the Democratic party in several statewide races in 2022. It’s expected to be a close race in November.
Battleground states like Arizona may determine the result of the election, so surveys from them are arguably more important than national polls.
However, many experts and academics have cautioned against relying on polls to try to predict the outcome of the election rematch. Thomas Gift, who heads the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, previously told Newsweek that reading too much into polls was “a fool’s errand.”
“Polls are so variable at this point that the only consistent insight we can glean from them is that Biden and Trump are neck and neck—not only nationally but in key swing states,” he said.
Newsweek contacted representatives for Trump and Biden by email to comment on this story.
In response, Steven Cheung, Trump’s campaign spokesperson, sent Newsweek links to a series of Arizona polls from February to April in which Trump led Biden in the state.
Data Orbital’s poll was conducted from April 27 to April 29. The sample size was 550 people, and the survey had a margin of error of +/- 4.26 percent.
The presidential election will take place on November 5.
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