A recent poll has Donald Trump up by 4 points in . . . Missouri, a state he won by 18 points in 2016. This and some other head-scratching poll results (Up by 3 in Utah? Up by 5 in Montana?) had me wondering how he’s doing in states that were basically blow-out victories in 2016, and which he is expected to win easily again in 2020.
Now, for good reason, states that are considered safe wins for the Republicans and Democrats are not polled very much, so there are not polls for every “Safe Trump” state. But I decided to look at all polls, from March of 2020 or later (once Biden started to plausibly be viewed as the challenger) of the “Safe Trump” states and compare them to Trump’s 2016 margin of victory (If there were 2 polls, I took the average). The data are from polls compiled by 270towin and RealClearPolitics.
These are states Trump won by 10 or more in 2016, that have recent polling data. In fact, the lowest margin of victory was 14 points.
Mar-May 2020 Polling
|
|
|
|
State
|
Trump
|
Biden
|
Margin
|
Poll Month
|
2016 Winner
|
2016 Margin
|
Swing 2016-20
|
MO
|
48
|
44
|
4
|
May
|
Trump
|
18
|
-14
|
KY
|
55
|
39
|
16
|
May
|
Trump
|
30
|
-14
|
TN
|
53
|
36
|
17
|
May
|
Trump
|
26
|
-9
|
SC
|
52
|
42
|
10
|
May
|
Trump
|
14
|
-4
|
MT
|
45
|
40
|
5
|
May
|
Trump
|
20
|
-15
|
UT
|
48
|
37
|
11
|
May/Apr
|
Trump
|
18
|
-7
|
MS
|
49
|
38
|
11
|
Apr
|
Trump
|
18
|
-7
|
IN
|
52
|
39
|
13
|
Apr
|
Trump
|
19
|
-6
|
KS
|
52
|
40
|
12
|
Mar
|
Trump
|
20
|
-8
|
OK
|
57
|
33
|
24
|
Mar
|
Trump
|
36
|
-12
|
ND
|
55
|
38
|
17
|
Mar
|
Trump
|
36
|
-19
|
In the polls (and average of 2 polls, in case of Utah) Trump’s margin has shrunk in every state, anywhere from 4 to 19 points. And in 4 of these states, he is getting below 50%. In fact, if I take a simple average of each of these swings, it comes to -10.5 points.
Obviously, not all states that Trump won easily in 2016 are listed above. Many of them have not been polled, or not recently. This includes AK, AL, AR, ID, LA, NE, SD, WV, and WY. In 2016, Trump’s margin of victory in AK was 15; the other states were all 20 or higher. Since there are no polls of these states, I applied the average swing of -10.5 to Trump’s margins (giving Trump 5.25 less than he got in 2016, and Biden 5.25 more than Hillary Clinton got in 2016), to estimate Trump’s margin of victory for 2020. What you see are rounded numbers, so the effect could have been a 10- or 11-point swing depending on Trump’s actual margins in 2016.
State
|
Trump
|
Biden
|
Margin
|
Poll Month
|
2016 Winner
|
2016 Margin
|
Swing 2016-20
|
SD
|
56
|
37
|
19
|
None
|
Trump
|
30
|
-10.5
|
AL
|
57
|
40
|
17
|
None
|
Trump
|
28
|
-10.5
|
AK
|
46
|
42
|
4
|
None
|
Trump
|
15
|
-10.5
|
NE
|
53
|
39
|
15
|
None
|
Trump
|
25
|
-10.5
|
WY
|
63
|
27
|
36
|
None
|
Trump
|
46
|
-10.5
|
ID
|
54
|
33
|
21
|
None
|
Trump
|
32
|
-10.5
|
AR
|
55
|
39
|
16
|
None
|
Trump
|
27
|
-10.5
|
WV
|
63
|
31
|
31
|
None
|
Trump
|
42
|
-10.5
|
LA
|
53
|
44
|
9
|
None
|
Trump
|
20
|
-10.5
|
So, a couple of observations. There are two states Trump won easily in 2016 where he could really, truly be in trouble in my opinion. Montana, where he is ahead by 5, but only polling at 45%, and Alaska, where (based on imputing the average swing, since there are no actual polls) he would get about 46% of the vote, to Joe Biden’s 42%. In 2016, Trump only received 51.3% of the vote in Alaska. His margin was so high because a lot of people voted for 3rd party candidates rather than Clinton. But there doesn’t seem to be a 3rd party candidate emerging this year to take a sizable portion of the vote. The other thing about these 2 states? They both have Senate races in 2020.
I know what some people are thinking. It doesn’t matter whether Trump wins the state by 2 points or 32 points, because of the electoral college. But it DOES matter for down-ballot races. A 12-point decline in support in OK means maybe Democrat Kendra Horn can hold on to OK-5. A 10-point swing in Nebraska may mean an extra electoral vote for Biden, and a victory for Kara Eastman in NE-02. An 8-point decline in support in KS means Barbara Bollier has a shot at the Senate. And state legislatures should benefit too. It also just generally signifies that support for Donald Trump has fallen, everywhere.
By the way, I also did this analysis for states where Hillary Clinton had an easy victory in 2016, and where Biden is widely expected to win. These states include CA, CT, DE, HI, IL, MA, MD, NY, NJ, OR, RI, VT, WA (and DC). In those states, Biden in running about 3.6 points better in polls on average than the margin by which Hillary won. NY, MD, CA and MA are basically a wash (Biden is within 2 points better or worse), but in NJ, Biden is polling 7 points better. This bodes well for NJ Democrats in Congress keeping the 4 seats they flipped in 2018, including “re-flipping” NJ-02, where former Democrat Jeff Van Drew changed his affiliation to R during the impeachment hearings.
Oh, and the swing states (where Trump or Clinton won by a margin of 10 or less—some of which we wouldn’t consider swing states)? They’ve all been polled within the last couple of months: AZ, CO, FL, GA, IA, ME, MI, MN, NC, NH, NM, NV, OH, PA, TX, VA, WI. Biden’s average improvement is 6.2 points across those states. If he actually improves by 6.2 in each state against Hillary’s margins, he’ll win every state on that list except for TX, IA and OH. Which would mean a pretty decisive electoral victory, and multiple new Dem Senators and Congresspeople.