Biden, Sanders, Lead Trump In Michigan Poll, As Do Buttigieg, Harris And Warren

A new poll in Michigan shows former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) have a 12-point lead over President Donald Trump in a public opinion survey of 600 likely voters released to The Detroit News and local WDIV-TV by the Glengariff Group.

Just three years after becoming the first Republican to win the state since former President George H. W. Bush in 1988, less than 36% of Michigan voters indicated they would re-elect Trump, compared with more than 50% who said they intended to vote for a different candidate.

Three other Democrats – South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. – all polled ahead of Trump, but Harris’s and Warren’s leads were within the four-percentage-point margin of error.

Biden and Sanders led the president by identical margins – 53% to 41% –, while Buttigieg led by 6% in the hypothetical matchup.

Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in Michigan by less than a quarter of a percentage point, earning Michigan’s 16 electoral votes. The president’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, in late April said Michigan was a key state for a Trump victory in 2020. Of those polled, more than 50% indicated they were against an impeachment proceeding against Trump.

“Obviously, we have to go back and win Michigan again, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin,” Parscale told CBS News’s “Face the Nation” on April 28, referring to three states Trump won by a combined 78,000 votes in 2016. Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes in that election.

Parscale pointed to several states Clinton won in 2016 that may be in play in the 2020 election, including Minnesota, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Nevada and Colorado.

Pollster Richard Czuba told The Detroit News, “What we saw in Michigan in 2016 wasn’t this giant surge of Trump voters – it was an absolute apathy on behalf of Independents and leaning Democrats to vote. We’re seeing the exact opposite heading into 2020.”

Czuba added Biden is the only candidate on either side polling well with Independents. Biden also polled well among women despite recent accusations the 76-year old career politician has made some women feel uncomfortable by public expressions of affection.

Sanders won Michigan in the 2016 presidential primary, and has a polling advantage over Trump among male voters, particularly those with only a high school degree, typically a Trump demographic, Czuba said.

Warren campaigned in Michigan on Tuesday, but doesn’t show as well among Independent voters as does Trump. She also appears to have less room to grow her numbers in the state when compared to Buttigieg and Harris, Czuba added.