Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are the only two 2020 Democratic candidates who could best President Trump in Texas, according to an Emerson College poll published Tuesday by The Dallas Morning News.
Both Biden and Sanders hold a 51 percent to 49 percent advantage over the president among registered voters in the Lone Star State, a difference that falls within the poll’s margin of error. The next closest candidates are former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D), South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who all trail Trump by a 48 percent to 52 percent margin.
The former vice president was the only Democrat to have an advantage over Trump in Texas in an Emerson College poll published in April.
{mosads}Biden also tops his Democratic rivals in the state, garnering the support of 27.7 percent of primary voters in the latest survey. He is followed by O’Rourke with 19 percent and Sanders with 15.7 percent.
Democrats are hoping to pose a strong challenge to Trump in the reliably conservative state amid shifting demographics and following O’Rourke’s ultimately unsuccessful insurgent 2018 Senate bid, which energized the party’s base and garnered a record number of donations.
A Democratic presidential candidate has not won the state in 40 years, since President Carter in 1976, and no Democrat has won a statewide race in Texas since 1994.
The poll’s results may be troubling for O’Rourke’s White House campaign, which was quick to tout a July poll that had him topping the primary field and beating Trump by 11 points.
O’Rourke’s standing behind both Biden and Trump in the poll may be partially fueled by a desire by voters for him to drop out of the White House race to instead challenge Sen. John Cornyn (R). Forty-six percent of registered voters, and about 51 percent of Democrats, said the Texas Democrat should run for Senate again, while 25 percent of all respondents said he should keep running for president.
The Emerson College poll surveyed 1,033 registered voters and about 400 Democratic presidential primary voters from Aug. 1-3. The poll has margins of error of 3 percentage points and 4.9 points, respectively.