Biden leads Trump by 4 points in new Arizona poll

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden holds a 4-point lead over President Trump in Arizona, according to a Monmouth University poll released on Thursday.

The former vice president garnered 48 percent support in the survey, while Trump trailed at 44 percent. Biden’s lead in the poll is just within the survey’s margin of error.

The poll adds to a list of recent public surveys that show Biden with an edge in the fast-growing Sunbelt state, one that Trump carried in 2016 by 3.5 percentage points.

A poll released earlier on Thursday by Kaiser Family Foundation and Cook Political Report found Biden with a 5-point lead in Arizona, prompting Cook to shift the state’s rating from the toss-up column to “lean Democrat.”

One factor driving Biden’s advantage in Arizona is his support among Latino voters. The Monmouth poll showed him leading Trump with those voters 63 percent to 33 percent. Then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton won Arizona’s Latino vote in 2016 by an identical 30-point margin, although she ultimately lost the state.

Biden also holds a sizable lead in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and its suburbs. The poll showed Biden garnering 50 percent support there to Trump’s 41 percent. Trump carried the county by about 3 points four years ago.

Beyond Maricopa, the poll shows Biden with a wide lead in the four counties that Clinton won in 2016 — Apache, Coconino, Pima and Santa Cruz — while Trump has a strong advantage in the other 10 counties he carried four years ago. 

“Both candidates are solidifying their support in the most partisan areas of the state, but the big prize is still Maricopa County. And we see a notable swing away from Trump there compared to four years ago,” said Patrick Murray, the director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute.

A win for Biden in Arizona would likely ease his path to 270 electoral votes significantly, allowing him to lose other battleground states like Michigan or Wisconsin and still amass enough votes to capture the White House as long as he wins the other states that Clinton carried in 2016.

In Arizona’s hotly contested Senate race, Democrat Mark Kelly holds a 6-point lead over Sen. Martha McSally (R), the poll shows. He garnered 50 percent support to the incumbent’s 44 percent. 

Opinions of Kelly are largely positive, with 48 percent of registered voters reporting a favorable view of the candidate and 29 percent saying they see him unfavorably. Views of McSally, meanwhile, are split, with 40 percent saying they view her favorably and 42 percent reporting an unfavorable opinion. 

McSally is among the most vulnerable GOP senators seeking reelection this year, along with incumbents in Colorado, North Carolina and Maine. Democrats need to flip three or four Senate seats this year, depending on which party wins the White House, in order to capture a majority in the chamber.

The Monmouth University survey of 420 registered voters in Arizona was conducted Sept. 11-15 and has a margin of error of 4.8 percentage points.