Texas hasn't gone blue in a presidential race since 1976, but a new poll indicates that at least early on, it could be a 2020 battleground. The latest survey from Quinnipiac University shows former Vice President Joe Biden with a four-point edge over President Trump in a hypothetical one-on-one matchup.
Biden was the only Democrat with a lead over Trump. Texans Julian Castro and Beto O'Rourke trailed the president by three points; the margin for Elizabeth Warren, who spent nearly a decade in the state, was one point.
The poll's margin of error was 3.4 points — which means any of these hypothetical races could go either way.
The gap was far wider in the race for the Democratic nomination. Biden nearly doubled his closest competitor, O'Rourke, 30% to 16%, with Warren (11%) and Bernie Sanders (15%) the only others with double-figure support. The sample size of Democrats was smaller, so the margin of error in that race is bigger -- 5.8 points.
"The numbers are good for Vice President Joseph Biden who dominates the field in a Democratic primary and has the best showing in a head-to-head match-up against President Donald Trump," Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac poll, said in a statement. "In historically red-leaning Texas, the report for the rest of the Democratic field is not so bad either, which could spell trouble for President Trump. It is the largest state in the country with a Republican edge."
Quinnipiac also asked whether potential voters would like to see O'Rourke stay in the presidential race or challenge U.S. Sen. John Cornyn instead -- and they overwhelmingly supported a challenge to Cornyn -- 60% to 27%.
This poll was done between May 28 and June 4 -- and it's the first significant polling in Texas since Biden officially entered the race.
Copyright 2019 KERA
