Arizona Poll: Donald Trump 45%, Joe Biden 43%

US President Donald Trump pumps his fists as he arrives for a "Make America Great Again" r
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President Donald Trump holds a slim lead over Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden in battleground Arizona among likely voters, a Targoz Market Research/PollSmart survey released Thursday found.

The survey, fielded September 23 to October 2 among 1,045 likely voters, showed Trump narrowly leading Biden in the Grand Canyon State by two percentage points — 45 percent to the former vice president’s 43 percent, among likely voters, specifically. The gap narrows one percentage point for “likely with leaners,” with Trump garnering 46 percent to Biden’s 45 percent. Trump also holds a one-point advantage in a low turnout scenario.

“While many other polls show a substantial Biden lead in the presidential race, we see an outcome similar to 2016 when Trump won the state by 4 points,” the survey reported, expressing the belief that “many” polls are “too narrowly defining who will be voting this year”:

Polls with tight or narrow likely voter screens or that rely on prior voter history to identify “likely voters” could be missing a block of voters (often older and male) who do not always show up on election day but plan to vote this year.

We asked voters when they registered to vote to get a sense of the ground game for each candidate. One in five likely voters say they registered to vote in 2020, which includes 24% of Biden’s voters, and over a third of this group (35%) are Hispanic or Latino.

Another 19% of likely voters say they registered between 2016 and 2019, and they make up one in five likely Trump voters. More than seven in ten (72%) of these 2016 to 2019 registrants are white, 65% are over 45, and more than half (55%) are male. In earlier national polling, we described this group as the “don’t vote, it only encourages the bastards” voting bloc, which has been a focus for the Trump outreach and explains why Trump’s support doesn’t translate to McSally in the Senate race.

While the majority said they registered to vote prior to 2016, 19 percent said they did so between 2016 and 2019, and 20 percent said they did this year.

The poll also examined the highly-anticipated Arizona Senate race, showing Democrat Mark Kelly leading incumbent Sen. Marth McSally (R-AZ) 49 percent to 40 percent among likely voters. His lead expands to ten points when “likely with leaners” is considered.

Arizona voters remain split on how the Senate should handle the Supreme Court vacancy, with 43 percent saying, at the time, that the Senate should “hold hearings and vote on whomever President Trump nominates. Another 43 percent expressed the belief that the Senate should “not hold hearings until the next President selects a nominee.”

The survey’s margin of error is +/- 3.3 percent.

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