Joe Biden Picks Up Point in Texas Dead Heat
as Trump Narrows Gap in Some Swing States

Texas General Election Polling

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor
September 9, 2020

A prestigious international technology firm that correctly predicted the popular vote in 2016 released a poll on Wednesday that shows President Donald Trump gaining ground on Democrat Joe Biden in more than half of the major battleground states with Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida and Texas as exceptions.

After finding Trump up by one in the Lone Star State immediately before and after the Republican National Convention late last month, the Morning Consult survey that taken this week shows the president tied with Biden at 46 percent support apiece in Texas less than eight weeks before the November 3 general election.

The Democratic organization Public Policy Polling found the president leading Biden by a single percentage point in a survey that it rolled out on Tuesday. While the PPP poll on the race at the top of the ticket was within a point or two of other recent presidential preference surveys that have portrayed Texas as toss up in 2020, the North Carolina-based group gave down-ballot Republicans here cause for added anxiety when it showed U.S. Senator John Cornyn leading MJ Hegar by a mere 4 points.

Cornyn had led the Democratic challenger by 9 points on average in five previous polls on the U.S. Senate contest that will be listed on the fall ballot right below the White House showdown. The veteran Republican lawmaker had an 11 point advantage on Hegar in a poll that the Dallas Morning News conducted in a partnership with the University of Texas at Tyler and made public a week ago.

But Cornyn could live or die with Trump as a consequence of the way that he'd sought to link himself to the president before the coronavirus crisis blew up the economy and left the Republicans in Texas staggering badly throughout the past six months.

The GOP's down-ballot contingent here could be hurt even more as a result of the association with Trump in light of revelations today that the president admitted that he'd been lying to the American people about the real dangers of COVID-19 during the first outbreak this spring. Trump served up the stunning confession in a series of interviews earlier this year with legendary journalist Bob Woodward.

Michigan and Wisconsin are the only major swing states where Biden hasn't improved his standing with voters in the past week based on the Morning Consult findings that show the Democraat's lead in the national popular vote to be shrinking as well. Biden has actually increased his lead by 4 percentage points in Michigan where he's up by 10 in the new poll. The former vice-president leads Trump by 8 points now in Wisconsin after being up by 6 before the RNC.

A 5 point lead that Biden enjoyed in Florida late last month hasn't changed in the latest round of Morning Consult surveys on battleground states.

But Trump has whittled Biden's lead by 2 points in North Carolina while gaining 3 points in Minnesota according the Morning Consult survey this week. Biden leads the president by 5 points in Pennsylvania after having a six-point advantage there two weeks ago.