Democratic Senate candidates in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are leading their Republican rivals and well ahead of President Biden in key states where he continues to struggle, according to New York Times polls. from the Philadelphia Inquirer and Siena College.
Surveys of registered voters indicate the president’s struggles against former President Donald J. Trump may not be enough to sink other Democrats, particularly incumbent senators who are facing lesser-known Republicans.
There aren’t many ticket splitters: About 10% of Trump voters support the Democratic Senate candidate in the four states, while about 5% of Biden supporters support the Republican.
But those voters are enough to give Democrats a chance in the Senate, where they currently hold a one-seat majority. To maintain control, Democrats would need to sweep all competitive Senate seats and win the White House.
(You can find the full survey results, including the exact questions that were asked, here. You can see answers to common questions on our survey process here.)
In Pennsylvania, Democratic Senator Bob Casey has the support of 46 percent of voters, compared with 41 percent who say they support his Republican challenger, wealthy financial executive David McCormick, although Mr. Trump has a slight advantage in a lead vote. . running race with Mr. Biden, 47 percent to 44 percent.
In Wisconsin, Democratic incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin holds a wider lead, 49 to 40 percent, over Republican banker Eric Hovde. Mr. Biden is up slightly over Mr. Trump, 47% to 45%.
In Nevada, where Mr. Biden is struggling the most, Democratic Senator Jacky Rosen narrowly leads his Republican challenger, Sam Brown, a wounded veteran, 40 to 38 percent, with 23 percent of registered voters undecided.
In Arizona, the only battleground state polled with an open Senate seat, Representative Ruben Gallego, a Phoenix-area Democrat, is ahead of Kari Lake, the former Republican news anchor who is closely allied with Mr. Trump , 45 percent to 41 percent, with 14 percent. percent undecided. Mr. Trump leads Mr. Biden in Arizona, 49% to 42%.
The contrasting results underscore the power of the mandate and how it appears to be overridden in the case of a former president challenging a sitting president. One voter after another expressed comfort with the incumbent Democratic Senate and almost complete lack of knowledge about the Republican challengers.
“Jacky Rosen has been around for a long time,” said Brian Dickinson, a 25-year-old registered Democrat in Las Vegas, who said he was considering splitting his ticket and voting for Mr. Trump. “I think she’s a very good Democrat.”
In Pennsylvania, 23% of Republicans had a favorable view of Mr. Casey, while only 6% had a favorable view of Mr. Biden.
Casey “is a name I’ve heard,” said Harry Wirebach, a 56-year-old veteran and unaffiliated voter in Croydon, Pennsylvania. Mr. Casey was first elected to the Senate in 2006; his father, Bob Casey, served as governor of Pennsylvania for two terms.
But that Democratic advantage did not improve Mr. Biden’s standing, and very few respondents lacked opinions on the leading presidential contenders.
“I would vote for a road-killed opossum if it was a choice over these three,” Mr. Wirebach said of Mr. Biden, Mr. Trump and independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Indeed, many ticket splitters said their presidential choices left them angry and unhappy.
“I’m not a party animal. I’m more for the state, and Gallego has done a good job for the state,” said Terry Crabtree, a 52-year-old disabled native of Tonopah, Ariz., in Maricopa County, who operates a food truck, Carnivore Creations. “I can’t stand Biden. I think he should be in prison. I think Trump should be in jail too. I hate being given these two choices.
Small Democratic advantages in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin still give the party only an outside chance of controlling the Senate. With the retirement of Sen. Joe Manchin III, a Democrat from deep-red West Virginia, Democrats would need to win every competitive Senate seat with the White House to give Vice President Kamala Harris the tie-breaking vote. next year. Even with a Democratic victory in every other competitive Senate election, a Trump victory and the loss of Mr. Manchin’s seat would give Republicans control of the chamber.
Another battleground state, Michigan, will also hold a Senate contest to fill Democratic incumbent Debbie Stabenow’s seat, but because the Republican nominee won’t be chosen until the August primary, the Times/Siena poll n didn’t ask Michigan voters for their preference. .
Two other consecutive Senate elections are not among the presidential battleground states surveyed. Senators Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio must be re-elected next November in their Republican-leaning states to give Democrats a chance to maintain their majority.
Democratic Senate candidates are stronger than Mr. Biden with key Democratic constituencies such as young voters, black voters and Hispanic voters. Latin American voters seem to once again play a crucial role, at the presidential level and in the senatorial election. Mr. Trump won 42 percent of the Hispanic vote in battleground states, but Senate Republicans got just 29 percent.
“I love what she does,” Joseph Gonzalez, a 60-year-old Hispanic truck driver from Milwaukee, said of Ms. Baldwin, who is seeking a third term in the Senate. “I don’t like what President Biden is doing. He is letting the United States down.”
Democratic senators, flush with money and spending heavily on the airwaves, are already distancing themselves from Mr. Biden. A new ad from Mr. Casey shows workers wearing hard hats declaring, “Our own government has turned its back on us” by using imported steel, without specifying which administration did so. He credits Mr. Casey with a “Buy America” provision in the president’s sprawling infrastructure bill, a provision for which Mr. Biden also claims credit.
Not all ticket splitters sided with Mr. Trump and the Democratic Senate candidate.
Benjamin Johnsen, a 37-year-old truck driver from Superior, Wis., said he had supported Mr. Biden since he was Barack Obama’s vice president, trusting him to defend the country against terrorism. But he said he wants Republicans to control the Senate and keep taxes low. He therefore leans towards Mr. Hovde, the Republican challenging Ms. Baldwin.
But most typical was Chris Myers, a 52-year-old union construction worker in Hartford, Wisconsin. Mr. Myers said he had never seen as much construction as was currently underway in the state. In fact, he said, he was helping build the $3 billion Microsoft artificial intelligence data center that Mr. Biden was touting in Wisconsin on Wednesday as a promise his administration kept.
Still, Mr. Myers said he would split his vote by supporting Ms. Baldwin, whom he praised for doing “good things for the state,” and Mr. Trump, saying, “I like his action , take them. no shit attitude. Mr. Myers mainly complained that Mr. Biden’s visit last week to celebrate the creation of Mr. Myers’s job ended up slowing down the concrete trucks.
In virtually any Senate election, enough undecided voters could tip the scales in favor of Republican challengers. That stands in stark contrast to the presidential race, where battleground voters say their views of Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump are more fixed.
“I’m voting for Donald Trump, guaranteed,” said Wesley Scarbrough, a 22-year-old electrician from Las Vegas who is Hispanic. But although he told a pollster that he preferred Ms. Rosen, he said in a follow-up interview that he was not sure. “Honestly, with the Senate,” he said, “I don’t really know. »
Asked why Hispanic voters in Nevada are rallying behind Mr. Trump, Mr. Scarbrough replied: “The border crisis has a lot to do with it. He said migrants crossing the border were “lazy, just looking for free things.”
Andrew Trounsky reports contributed.
Here are the key things to know about how these surveys were conducted:
We spoke with 4,097 registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin from April 28 to May 9, 2024.
Our surveys are conducted by telephone, using live interviewers, in English and Spanish. Nearly 95 percent of respondents were contacted by cell phone for this survey. You can see the exact questions that were asked and the order in which they were asked here.
Voters are selected for the survey from a list of registered voters. The list contains information on the demographic characteristics of each registered voter, allowing us to ensure we reach the right number of voters from each party, race and region. For this round of polls, we made nearly 500,000 calls to approximately 410,000 voters.
To further ensure that results reflect the entire voting population, not just those willing to participate in a survey, we are giving more weight to respondents from demographic groups that are underrepresented among survey respondents, such as people without a university degree. You can see more information about the characteristics of our respondents and the weighted sample on the methodology page, under “Sample composition”.
When states are grouped, the margin of sampling error among registered voters is plus or minus 1.8 percentage points. Each state poll has a margin of error ranging from plus or minus 3.6 points in Pennsylvania to plus or minus 4.6 points in Georgia. In theory, this means that the results should reflect the opinions of the overall population most of the time, even if many other challenges create additional sources of error. When calculating the difference between two values, such as a candidate’s lead in a race, the margin of error is twice as large.
You can see the full results and a detailed methodology here. If you would like to learn more about how and why we conduct our surveys, you can view answers to frequently asked questions and submit your own questions here.
The New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College Pennsylvania poll was funded by a grant from the Lenfest Institute for Journalism. The survey was designed and conducted independently of the institute.
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