Democratic Senate candidates are performing better than President Biden in four key battleground states and leading their GOP rivals, showing hope for the party as Biden remains neck and neck with former President Trump in the race for the White House.
The New York Times poll found the Democratic candidate leading in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona, four states expected to have tight presidential election margins. The Times found Trump leading Biden in three of the four states, with Biden clinging to a small lead in Wisconsin.
Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) holds a 5-point lead over GOP rival David McCormick, with 46 percent support according to the poll, which also found Trump leading Biden by 3 points in the state.
In Wisconsin, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D) has a sizable 9-point lead over businessman Eric Hovde, while Biden leads Trump by 2 points.
Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) has a 2-point lead and Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) has a 4-point lead over their respective Republican opponents, despite even worse performance for Biden in those states.
Exactly half of Nevada voters sided with Trump when asked to pick a side between the two candidates, a 12-point lead for the former president. Trump took 49 percent of support in Arizona, a 7-point margin over Biden.
Democrats can only lose one incumbent Senate seat and retain a 50-seat majority, if the president is reelected. Retiring Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) seat is likely to fall to a Republican.
The battleground poll did not survey Michigan’s Senate race, as the Republican candidate has not yet been selected, and did not poll key races in Ohio and Montana.
Those latter two races, where Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) are running in GOP-heavy states this fall, could be the key to deciding the overall Senate tilt. Democrats almost certainly need to win both races to retain a majority in the upper chamber.
In the four states polled, the Democratic Senate candidates consistently led Biden in favorability.
The Senate candidates did especially well with Latino and Black voters when compared to Biden. While Trump has the support of about 42 percent of Latino voters overall, the Republican Senate candidates only have about 29 percent, according to the survey.
Biden and Trump are effectively tied for the presidential race overall, according to The Hill/Decision Desk HQ average of national polls.
The New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and Siena College poll surveyed about 4,100 registered voters over the course of late April and early May. It has a margin of error of about 1.8 percent for the total sample, with a margin of 3.6 percent to 4.6 percent for specific states.