Schweikert up by 3 points in reelection bid in Arizona: survey

Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) leads his Democratic opponent by 3 percentage points in a district he won by double digits in 2018 and 2016, according to a new poll.

The incumbent leads Democratic challenger Hiral Tipirneni, 49 percent to 46 percent, in a poll of likely voters living in Arizona’s 6th Congressional District released Wednesday morning by OH Predictive Insights.

Schweikert won his district, which includes Scottsdale and the more affluent Phoenix suburbs, by 24 points in 2016 and just over 10 points in 2018. 

Earlier this year, he found himself at the center of an ethics scandal. In late July, he agreed to a resolution with House Ethics Committee investigators that included a $50,000 fine and a formal sanction after admitting to 11 ethics violations related to campaign finance. Schweikert was accused by the committee of misusing public funds and pressuring his congressional staff to perform campaign-related duties.

When it comes to the presidential election, President Trump leads Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden by just 1 point in the highly educated district, 49 percent to 48 percent, despite crushing Hillary Clinton by 11 points there in 2016.

Those numbers could spell an opening for the Biden campaign to take the state’s 11 Electoral College votes, or at the very least force the Trump campaign to spend resources to protect them. The former vice president’s campaign most recently announced new ads in the state in late September. Trump won the state by about 4 points over Clinton in 2016.

Wednesday’s poll comes just a day after a separate survey from The New York Times and Siena College found the former vice president with an 8-point lead over Trump in the state, with 6 percent of voters undecided.

The OH Predictive Insights survey included responses from 531 likely voters in the 6th Congressional District between Sept. 23-27, before the president announced his diagnosis of COVID-19 and was hospitalized at Walter Reed Medical Center last Friday. The poll’s margin of error is 4.3 percentage points.