Poll: Trump has 5-point lead over Biden in Texas

President Trump holds a 5-point lead over former Vice President Joe Biden in Texas, according to a new poll.

The University of Texas-Texas Tribune poll released Saturday showed Trump at 49 percent support and Biden at 44 percent, with 7 percent of voters saying they were undecided.

Among independent voters, 39 percent favored Trump, 29 percent favored Biden and 32 percent said they haven’t formed an opinion.

The poll suggests that come November, the nation’s second-most populous state could see its closest general election in more than two decades.

In 2016, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in Texas by 9 points. In 2012, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) defeated former President Obama by 16 points in the state, and in 2008, the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) defeated Obama by 12 points.

The poll also found that 49 percent of Texans “approve strongly” of the president, which is slightly higher than a February poll. Among Republicans, 90 percent say they approve of the job he is doing, while 87 percent of Democrats say they disapprove.

Daron Shaw, a pollster at the University of Texas at Austin and co-director of the poll, argued that the election will be a referendum on Trump’s tenure, saying in a statement that “it’s Trump, Trump, Trump all the time. And all the news is about coronavirus.”

Trump also polls better with minority communities in Texas than he does nationally. Sixteen percent of black voters and 40 percent of Latino voters said they’d vote to reelect the president. Female voters are split 46 percent to 46 percent between both candidates. 

The online poll of 1,200 registered voters was conducted April 10 to April 19 and has a 2.83 percentage point margin of error.