Despite low national approval ratings and the specter of impeachment, President Trump remains highly competitive in the battleground states likeliest to decide his re-election, according to a set of new surveys from The New York Times Upshot and Siena College.This seems especially worrisome:
This line jumps out: "Nearly two-thirds of the Trump voters who said they voted for Democratic congressional candidates in 2018 say that they’ll back the president against all three named opponents."
— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) November 4, 2019
But it's not the only swing-state poll we have -- it's not even the only newly released swing-state poll. Emerson has a Michigan poll with very different results.
The Times's Warren numbers in Michigan seem like particular outliers:
And there's this critique of the Times methodology, from a Michigan journalist:
Interesting party ID breakdown for MI: 29% Dem, 24% GOP, 44% independent. Michigan-based pollsters, FWIW, typically have something like a 41-36 Dem-GOP split. https://t.co/g7NZ3eYiSD
— Zach Gorchow (@ZachGorchow) November 4, 2019
Could including a larger number of independents explain why so many respondents are claiming they voted Democratic in 2018 but will choose Trump in 2020?
Granted, the Times numbers could be right and everyone else could be wrong. And it's not crazy to think that some moderate anti-Trump voters are concluding that the Democrats have gone too far to the left. (That's what they're told every day by the allegedly liberal media.) Ronald Reagan didn't pretend to be moderate, but the two most recent Republican presidents certainly did, which helps explain how they made it to the Oval Office. Maybe Democratic progressives need to be better liars.
I need to see more polls pointing to Democratic doom before I take this one as gospel.
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