Poll: Donald Trump Competitive with Joe Biden in Colorado as He Looks to Expand Electoral Battleground

Donald Trump and Joe Biden
Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire, Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
Nick Gilbertson

A December poll from the University of Colorado, first published Monday, found that President Joe Biden holds a seven-point lead over former President Donald Trump in a hypothetical general election race in Colorado, indicating the state has soured on Biden and grown on Trump since 2020.

The survey — conducted by the University of Colorado’s American Politics Research Lab along with YouGov from December 1-18, 2023 — found 47 percent of Colorado adults would back Biden in a general election between the men, while 40 percent would support Trump. Thirteen percent plan to vote for someone else.

While Biden held a fairly comfortable lead in the poll, the margin of his 2020 victory over the 45th president in the Centennial State has essentially been cut in half. In that presidential election, Biden won Colorado by 13.5 percentage points.

The 2016 contest between Trump and twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was far closer. Clinton garnered 48.2 percent of the vote, besting Trump at 43.3 percent by 4.9 points, while third-party candidates split the remaining vote.

In the University of Colorado poll, Biden has a double-digit lead among independents (46 percent to 34 percent), but Trump has a stronger crossover appeal to the Democrat voters than Biden does with Republicans.

While Biden takes 88 percent of Democrat respondents’ support, ten percent of the demographic would back Trump, and only two percent would go for a third-party nominee. And while Trump slightly underperformed Biden with his own base, securing 85 percent of Republican support, only five percent of Republicans say they back Biden, while ten percent plan to vote for someone else.

It is possible Trump’s base support among GOP respondents could increase in subsequent polls, considering this survey was conducted in December, before Trump’s historic victory in the Iowa Caucuses and thunderous win in New Hampshire.

In that time, he also secured a slew of key endorsements — including from primary field rivals like Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND) — and calls for unity have grown increasingly louder.

WATCH: Ron DeSantis Drops Out of GOP Primary, Endorses Trump

Ron DeSantis / Twitter

The poll was also conducted before Trump’s viral interview with Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow and Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle, in which he said he planned to expand the map of battleground states to include states Republicans have not won in presidential elections in years, though he did not specifically mention Colorado.

“One of the other things I’m going to do — and I may be foolish in doing it — is I’m going to make a heavy play for New York, heavy play for New Jersey, heavy play for Virginia, heavy play for New Mexico, and a heavy play for a state that hasn’t been won in years, Minnesota,” Trump said.

The poll sampled 800 Colorado adults, and the margin of error is ± 4.23 percent.

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