Trump Trails Key Democratic Candidates In Various PA Polls

PENNSYLVANIA - America is heading into a presidential election year and few states are more critical to Donald Trump’s re-election bid than Pennsylvania.

Although Trump narrowly won the state in 2016, polls thus far suggest he will have difficulty duplicating that feat. If he does not, his chances of winning a second term take a significant hit.

The Keystone State’s 20 electoral votes are tied for fifth-most and Pennsylvania was one of three traditionally blue states that propelled Trump to victory in 2016. Trump, in fact, was the first Republican presidential candidate to win Pennsylvania since George H.W. Bush in 1988.

But Trump’s margin of victory over Hillary Clinton was razor-thin. More than six million votes were cast in Pennsylvania and Trump won by 44,000 - or less than one percent. Even a miniscule voter shift next year could tip the state to Trump’s Democratic opponent.

Pennsylvania is up for grabs, so expect plenty of candidates, rallies and campaign cash flowing into the state.

"The fact is, precious few states are likely to matter (in the election), and Pennsylvania has emerged as one of the top-tier states,” G. Terry Madonna, a Franklin & Marshall College political science professor, told PennLive. “We’re going to be, in effect, ground zero.”

In a sense, that’s already happened. Trump made several Pennsylvania visits during the fall, and Vice President Mike Pence has appeared here as well. Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden has his national headquarters in Philadelphia and held his first official campaign event in Pittsburgh.

Recent polling suggests the president has his work cut out for him in his attempt to again win the state. A Muhlenberg College-Morning Call survey in November showed a solid majority of 57 percent of registered voters in Pennsylvania believe Trump does not deserve another term as president.

Trump trails in matchups with three leading Democratic candidates - Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Biden had a nine-percent lead over Trump, while Warren and Sanders each had five-percent advantages.

However, more voters had unfavorable views of the Democratic trio than favorable ones.
Firehouse Strategies, a Republican public affairs firm, released poll results with dramatically different results earlier this month. In the Firehouse survey, Trump enjoyed comfortable leads over his potential Democratic challengers in Pennsylvania - four percent over Michael Bloomberg, five percent over Biden, six percent over Pete Buttigieg, seven percent over Warren and 10 percent over Sanders.

The Real Clear Politics website calculated the average of three Pennsylvania polls this year - by Muhlenberg College-Morning Call, New York Times-Siena and Quinnipiac University - to determine that Trump is trailing Biden by an average of seven percent, Sanders by 3.7 percent and Warren by 2 percent.

It’s unclear how Trump’s impeachment might impact his standing in the polls in Pennsylvania, but he still has ardent supporters in the state.

“Nobody's perfect. And he hasn't been without mistakes, but he certainly has done more things right then wrong,” Robert Dressler of Mechanicsburg told NBC News at a Trump rally in Hershey on Dec. 11. He asserted that what he called the impeachment “stupidity” will only motivate people who think similarly to vote for the president again in 2020.

How correct Dresslet’s contention is could go a long way in determining how Trump fares here in November.