Poll: Democrats trail Trump in Wisconsin, lead in Michigan and Pennsylvania

Democrats may face an uphill battle in Wisconsin when the party’s eventual nominee goes up against President Trump in November, a new poll suggests, while other battlegrounds state of Pennsylvania and Michigan are shaping up to be more friendly territory.

A Quinnipiac University Poll survey released on Thursday shows Trump trouncing six Democratic presidential contenders in head-to-head match-ups in Wisconsin, one of the so-called blue wall states carried by the real estate mogul in the 2016 election.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Vice President Joe Biden, the two candidates in closest competition with the president, are running 7 points behind him in the state, while Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) appear to have the toughest odds, trailing Trump in hypothetical match-ups by 10 points and 11 points, respectively. 

But in Pennsylvania, another state that flipped for Trump after former President Obama won it in 2008 and 2012, the Democratic candidates’ prospects look brighter. Biden leads the president in the Keystone State, 50 percent to 42 percent. Meanwhile, Klobuchar and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg lead Trump by 7 points and 6 points, respectively.

In fact, each of the six Democratic candidates included in the Quinnipiac poll lead Trump in hypothetical match-ups in Pennsylvania. 

In Michigan, another longtime blue state carried by Trump in 2016, the Democratic candidates appear to have an advantage, though the race against Trump is tighter. Sanders and Bloomberg carry the largest leads in that state, with the former topping Trump 48 percent to 43 percent and the latter leading 47 percent to 42 percent.

Buttigieg and Klobuchar face the toughest challenge against Trump in Michigan. Both lead by only a single percentage point, according to the poll. 

Taken together, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania represent part of what Democrats see as a crucial path to victory in the 2020 election. They were considered part of the party’s traditional “blue wall” — states that had been won by the Democratic candidate in every presidential election for more than 20 years, and which Democrats believed would help secure Hillary Clinton’s victory over Trump — but the states shocked party officials when the Republican emerged victorious in all three in 2016.

Since then, Democrats have sought to rebuild their coalitions in those states. In the 2018 midterm elections, the party flipped four GOP-held House seats in Pennsylvania. That same year, they gained two Republican-held seats in Michigan districts that Trump previously carried.

Trump remains more popular than not in Wisconsin, however. The Quinnipiac poll showed his approval in the state at 51 percent, while his disapproval registered at 46 percent.

In Michigan and Pennsylvania, however, Trump’s approval is underwater. Fifty-four percent of Michigan voters said they disapprove of the president’s handling of his job, while in Pennsylvania, that number was 52 percent, the poll found.

The Quinnipiac poll surveyed 845 registered voters in Michigan, 849 in Pennsylvania and 823 in Wisconsin from Feb. 12-18. The margin of error for the samples in each state is plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.