Arizona Mirror associate editor and politics reporter Jeremy Duda said on Friday that shifting demographics and criticism against President Trump could give Democratic nominee Joe Biden an advantage in the battleground state.
The latest ABC News-Washington Post poll found Trump leading Biden among voters in Arizona by a slim margin — 49 percent to 48 percent. The poll also reported a tight race for Senate in Arizona, with Democrat Mark Kelly at 49 percent and Sen. Martha McSally (R) at 48 percent among likely voters.
Duda said during an interview on Hill.TV Friday that these tightening margins could be explained by an increase of Democratic support in Maricopa County, home to more than 4 million people and accounting for more than 60 percent of the state’s population. The area, which also includes the city of Phoenix, has become increasingly blue over the years.
“Races for the legislature are getting closer, the margins are narrower than they’ve been since the 1960s for the Democrats,” Duda said.
“You’re definitely seeing some changes, and it’s hard to say whether that’s a result of Trump or if it’s really a result of real long-term changes that will probably take a few more election cycles to really get a handle on that,” Duda added. “But at least for now, things are much more in play for Democrats than they normally would be.”
The Arizona journalist also pointed out that the last Democrat to win the battleground state was Bill Clinton in the 1996 election. He added, though, that Democrats have more recently been performing better in the Southwestern state, with Hillary Clinton losing by only 4 percentage points in 2016.
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