GOP pollster says Trump ahead of Biden in 4 out of 6 battleground states
By Lukas Mikelionis
Fox News
May 14, 2019
President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are close in key battleground states, with Trump leading in four out of six crucial states, according to Republican pollster Chris Wilson.
Wilson, former director of research analytics and digital strategy for Ted Cruz’s 2016 campaign, told “Fox and Friends” on Tuesday morning that the latest findings from WPA Intelligence, where he is a CEO, are good news for Trump.
“What we found is the president is doing very well in a lot of the states he won back in 2016. The ones that gave him victory. And we see six states we looked at; he has a lead in all but two of them. And in those he is in the margin of error, just slightly behind,” he said.
Wilson said that Trump has a lead in Florida, Iowa, Texas and Wisconsin, while he’s in “dead heat” in Pennsylvania and slightly behind in Michigan, showing that the midterm elections last year, in which the GOP lost the control of the House, aren’t comparable to the presidential election.
“What we saw is the midterm elections really tell us nothing about what’s going to happen in 2020 and that’s a good reminder when it comes to these sort of presidential elections, midterm have nothing to do with it,” he said.
Wilson notes that when Trump is being tested against Biden, “we see he leads with blue-collar workers and we see he is rebounding with suburban voters.”
The poll also shows that Trump is breaking 50 percent approval rating in the battleground states, with 47 percent disapproving of him as the president. But Wilson says that these figures reflect more the “hyper partisan climate” rather than indicating how the voters would cast their ballots in the 2020 election.
But the data does suggest that taking a strong stand on trade deals, China and other countries “is having an impact on [Trump’s] numbers overall,” Wilson said.
The pollster went on to explain that the reason Biden, who jumped into the race just weeks ago, is leading in two states and is just slightly behind in four others is because he’s “benefiting from a bit of a honeymoon period.”
“The other aspect of this is that Joe Biden tries to kick-start or restart or jump-start the Obama international apology tour,” he said.
“It again points to the fact as you see the president taking strong stands on these international trade agreements and taking strong stands on the economy to make sure it keeps humming along. It’s in those states, the Iowas, the Wisconsins, the Michigans, the Pennsylvanias where it’s going to have the strongest impact for the president.”