Florida, Arizona look like toss-ups
President Donald Trump and former vice president Joe Biden are locked in close races in Florida and Arizona, according to two Washington POST-ABC News polls in two Sun Belt battlegrounds the presidentwonin2016crucial tohis hopes for reelection in November.
In Florida, likely voters split 51 percent for Trump to 47 percent for Biden, while registered voters split 48 percent for Biden and 47 percent for Trump.
In Arizona, Trump’s margin is even smaller at 49 percent to Biden’s 48 percent among likely voters. Among Arizona’s registered voters, Trump is at 47 percent and Biden at 49 percent. All these differences are within the polls’ margins of sampling error.
The findings are better for Trumpthan other polls conducted in the two states recently by other organizations. The Post’s average of polls this month shows Biden with a 2-point advantage in Florida and a 6-pointmargin in Arizona.
Overall, the surveys illustrate that theeconomy, despite itsweakened state, is helping Trump overcome voters’ disapproval of his handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
The poll also shows a close Senate race in Arizona, with Democratic nominee Mark Kelly at 49 percent torepublican Sen. Martha Mcsally’s 48 percent among likely voters. Kelly has a five-point edge among registered voters, 50 percent to 45 percent.
There appear to be few crossover voters, with only 4 percent of likely voters who back Trump or Biden indicating theywould flip in the Senate race.
Among the handful of battleground states, none is more important tothe president thanflorida, where a loss to Biden would cripple his chances of winning reelection and open upmultiple avenues for the Democratic nominee to win an electoral college majority.
Trump won the state by just over 1 percentage point in 2016, and both sides, and their allies, are throwing as many resources as possible into the race there.
Democrats see Arizona, which has voted for a Democratic presidential nominee only once since 1952, as a prime target to flip.
A Biden victory there could offset a possible loss inwisconsin, as the two states’ electoral votes are almost equal. Wisconsin and two other Rust Belt states, Michigan and Pennsylvania, flipped to Trump in 2016 despite usually siding with Democrats, and both campaigns have targeted those states this year.
In Florida and Arizona, the Latino vote will play a significant role in determining the winner, but the makeup of that vote is more varied in Florida than in Arizona.
In Florida, the Latino vote splits 52 percent for Biden and 39 percent for Trump, among registered voters.
Biden has struggled among some Latino voters, and his campaign has put renewed emphasis on reaching them. In 2016, Hillary Clinton carried Florida’s Latino vote by 62 percent to 35 percent.
In Arizona, Biden leads Trump among Latinos by 61 percent to 34 percent among registered voters. Four years ago, Clinton carried the Latinovotethereby61percent to31 percent, according to network exit polls.