Trump's Texas Turnaround: POTUS erases 5-point deficit against Biden and takes lead by 2 points, shows poll
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden was leading over incumbent President Donald Trump in the red bastion of Texas ahead of the November 3 polls but new polling shows the latter has now gone ahead, assuring the GOP.
According to a poll released on Sunday, September 6, by The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler, Trump is now leading his opponent by two points among the likely voters, erasing the five-point deficit he faced over the last two months. While 48 percent support the Republican now, 46 percent back the Democrat with a margin of error of plus/minus 3.22 percent.
Democrats haven't won Texas in a presidential election since 1976
However, the Lone Star state still remains a battleground and the Republican party will be hoping for the gap to widen if it wants to see Trump returning to the White House. The last time the Democratic Party won Texas was in 1976 when Jimmy Carter beat Gerald Ford by more than three percent. In 2016, Trump won by nine percent against Hillary Clinton which was comprehensive but yet the worst show for a Republican candidate since Ford. The president has made several visits to the state in recent times to see his numbers bounce back.
This time, Biden is still ahead when the broader group of registered voters is included, though by a slender margin of one percent. While 44 percent of registered voters back Biden, 43 percent support Trump, with those numbers within the poll’s 2.87 percent margin of error.
Political scientist Mark Owens, who directed the poll, was quoted as saying by The Dallas Morning News: “Trump is ahead”. He said the fates of Trump and Senator John Cornyn, the two top Republican candidates, are closely entwined. According to Owens, Cornyn is helping Trump. Cornyn, who is serving as a senator from Texas since 2002, however, has seen a slide of two points in his lead over Democratic challengers Mary Jennings Hegar since July (13 to 11), the Morning News added. However, three in nearly 10 voters remain undecided.
In 2018, former Texas Democratic representative and presidential contender Beto O’Rourke came very close to beating Senator Ted Cruz but the “Beto Effect” helped flip many red counties in the state into blue.
Biden took a five-point lead between April and July
In April, Biden and Trump were tied in The News/UT-Tyler survey, but by early July, the former veep went ahead by 48-43 among likely voters – something striking since the Democrats haven’t won a statewide contest since 1994.
Trump’s lead coincides with nationwide unrest over police killings, high unemployment rate and the administration’s controversial handling of the pandemic. Texas has been one of the worst affected states with more than 13,000 killed in six months. Nearly one in four residents of the state knows someone who has died in the pandemic.
In July, Trump went to the Midland-Odessa area where he visited an oil rig and warned that Biden’s policies would kill energy jobs. A month later, with the urban protests reducing, it looks like Trump has been gaining momentum.
The poll, which was conducted between August 28 and September 2, surveyed 1,176 registered voters. Of those, 901 said they are “extremely likely” to vote in the November election.