Elizabeth Warren is Donald Trump’s strongest challenger in Evergreen State, NPI poll finds

Of the three Demo­c­ra­t­ic hope­fuls cur­rent­ly con­sid­ered most like­ly to secure the par­ty’s nom­i­na­tion for Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States in 2020, Unit­ed States Sen­a­tor Eliz­a­beth War­ren of Mass­a­chu­setts does the best in a hypo­thet­i­cal matchup against Repub­li­can Don­ald Trump, a new NPI poll has found.

But only by a smidgen.

60% of Wash­ing­to­ni­ans sur­veyed by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling last week for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute said they would vote for War­ren if the elec­tion were being held today and the can­di­dates were War­ren and Trump.

37% said they would vote for Trump, while 3% were not sure.

59% of those sur­veyed said they would vote for Biden if the can­di­dates were Biden and Trump, while 58% said they would vote for Sanders if the can­di­dates were Sanders and Trump. Against Biden and Sanders, Trump gets the same 37% he would get in the hypo­thet­i­cal matchup with Warren.

Notably, twice as many like­ly 2019 Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers (6%) said they were unde­cid­ed when asked about Sanders ver­sus Trump than when they were asked about War­ren or Biden ver­sus Trump (3%). Sanders would still deci­sive­ly defeat Don­ald Trump in a head to head matchup, however.

The main take­away from these find­ings is that who­ev­er is the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee next year can expect to claim Wash­ing­ton State’s twelve elec­toral votes. Wash­ing­ton is not and will not be a bat­tle­ground state.

Wash­ing­ton State has not sup­port­ed the Repub­li­can nom­i­nee for Pres­i­dent in decades. The state backed Ronald Rea­gan’s can­di­da­cy 1980 and 1984; since then, vot­ers in Wash­ing­ton have con­sis­tent­ly sup­port­ed the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­nee (Michael Dukakis, Bill Clin­ton, Al Gore, John Ker­ry, Barack Oba­ma, Hillary Clinton).

This is the sec­ond set of find­ings we have released from our recent sur­vey of nine hun­dred like­ly 2019 Wash­ing­ton State vot­ers, which was in the field from Tues­day, Octo­ber 22nd through Wednes­day, Octo­ber 23rd. We pre­vi­ous­ly released find­ings show­ing Wash­ing­to­ni­ans dis­ap­prove of Don­ald Trump and want him impeached.

The poll uti­lizes a blend­ed method­ol­o­gy inclu­sive of cell­phone only vot­ers, with 53% of respon­dents par­tic­i­pat­ing via land­line and 43% par­tic­i­pat­ing via text.

The poll was con­duct­ed by Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Polling for the North­west Pro­gres­sive Insti­tute, and has a mar­gin of error of +/- 3.3% at the 95% con­fi­dence level.

In a pre­ced­ing sur­vey con­duct­ed last May for NPI by PPP, 59% of respon­dents said they would vote for Trump’s unnamed Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger were the elec­tion being held today. That poll was also of like­ly 2019 Wash­ing­ton State voters.

Here’s our War­ren ver­sus Trump ques­tion and responses:

QUESTION: If the elec­tion for Pres­i­dent were held today and the can­di­dates were Demo­c­rat Eliz­a­beth War­ren and Repub­li­can Don­ald Trump, who would you vote for?

ANSWERS:

• War­ren: 60%
• Trump: 37%
• Not sure: 3%

Here are the num­bers by region:

QUESTION: If the elec­tion for Pres­i­dent were held today and the can­di­dates were Demo­c­rat Eliz­a­beth War­ren and Repub­li­can Don­ald Trump, who would you vote for?

ANSWERS:

• King Coun­ty
  • War­ren: 77%
  • Trump: 21%
  • Not sure: 2%
• North Puget Sound 
  • War­ren: 49%
  • Trump: 45%
  • Not sure: 6%
• South Sound
  • War­ren: 53%
  • Trump: 43%
  • Not sure: 4%
• Olympic Penin­su­la and South­west Washington 
  • War­ren: 60%
  • Trump: 38%
  • Not sure: 2%
• East­ern Washington 
  • War­ren: 48%
  • Trump: 50%
  • Not sure: 2%

We found it strik­ing that in the East­ern Wash­ing­ton region, almost as many vot­ers said they’d sup­port Eliz­a­beth War­ren as Trump. Bernie Sanders also achieved 48% in his hypo­thet­i­cal matchup with Don­ald Trump in East­ern Wash­ing­ton, where­as Joe Biden got 43% to Trump’s 52% in East­ern Washington.

Biden per­forms just as well as War­ren or Sanders in every oth­er region of the state, but east of the Cas­cades, he los­es to Trump instead of pulling almost even.

This dis­par­i­ty is evi­dence that the con­ven­tion­al wis­dom held by many pun­dits about mov­ing to the mid­dle (or adopt­ing “cen­trist” posi­tions) is sim­ply not a recipe for bol­ster­ing sup­port for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty in rur­al communities.

These num­bers show us that Democ­rats have noth­ing to lose and every­thing to gain from select­ing a pro­gres­sive as their nom­i­nee instead of a neolib­er­al. A pro­gres­sive nom­i­nee like War­ren or Sanders can secure more sup­port for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty among rur­al vot­ers than a neolib­er­al like Biden can.