AP
This combo image shows Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, left, March 9, 2024 and President Joe Biden, right, Jan. 27, 2024.
Wednesday, May 1, 2024 | 2 a.m.
A new poll conducted with 1,000 would-be voters in Nevada found what has been long suspected about November’s presidential race: President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are in a tight race here.
In Nevada, 45% of the respondents indicated they prefer Trump, and 44% are supporting Biden, according to the survey by Emerson College Polling/The Hill. Undecided voters are 11%. Results were released Tuesday.
Polling elsewhere by Emerson found Biden is also narrowly trailing Trump in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The differences are within each survey’s margin of error, polling officials said.
It’s an improvement in Nevada for Biden, who in the same poll in February trailed Trump 46%-40% with 14% undecided.
“The state of the presidential election in swing states has remained relatively consistent since Emerson and The Hill started tracking them last November,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a news release. “The share of undecided voters has reduced and Biden gained ground in Georgia and Nevada, narrowing the gap, while Trump has maintained a slight edge on Biden in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.”
Nevada has voted for the Democrat in the race for the White House in every election since Barack Obama won in 2008. In 2020, Biden defeated Trump here by about 30,000 votes out of nearly 1.4 million votes cast.
But Nevada is still very much considered a swing state, especially after Republican Joe Lombardo defeated incumbent Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak in the 2022 election.
Kimball said polling showed independent voters in Nevada break for Trump, 43%-37%. They also favor Trump in Arizona (48%-38%), Michigan (44%-35%), Pennsylvania (49%-33%) and North Carolina (41%-38%). Independents polled back Biden in Georgia (42%-38%) and Wisconsin (44%-41%).
The survey asked voters how a guilty verdict in Trump’s criminal trial in New York would affect the likelihood of supporting him for president. Prosecutors in Trump’s criminal case say hush money payments made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels were “a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election.”
Most Republican respondents said a guilty verdict would make them more likely to support Trump. In Nevada, just 9% of Republicans said it would make them less likely to back Trump.
The polling also looked at the races for the U.S. Senate, where incumbent Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., holds a sizable lead over potential Republican challengers. The survey found she leads Sam Brown 45%-37% with 18% undecided; in a race with former Ambassador Jeff Gunter, Rosen leads 47% to 33%, with 20% undecided.
“Democrats are positioned for success this fall because we consistently put in the work to earn every vote,” Nevada State Democratic spokesperson Tai Sims said in a statement to the Sun. “...While Republicans struggle to get their campaign off the ground, Democrats will continue to build a strong-diverse team that looks like Nevada and is laser-focused on earning every vote in November.”
The survey was conducted April 25-29. It has a margin of error of 3%, officials said.
[email protected] / 702-990-2662 / @raybrewer21
