By Daniel Stefanski |

Former President Donald J. Trump continues to lead in the battleground state of Arizona, though his margin is not insurmountable over President Joe Biden for the November General Election.

Two polls were released last week, showing Trump over Biden in Arizona, whose eleven Electoral College votes will likely prove critical for the outcome of the 2024 Presidential Election.

The first poll was from CBS News / YouGov. This result had Trump beating Biden by five percent (52-47) in their second head-to-head match-up. This poll was conducted between May 10-16 with a sample of 1,214 registered voters across the state.

In this poll, Trump’s high-level support was stronger than Biden’s. Sixty-six percent of respondents indicated that their support for the former president was “very strong” compared to sixty-one percent for Biden. The economy (82%), inflation (78%), and the state of democracy (70%) were the top factors in the individuals’ selections for president, followed by the U.S. Mexico border (61%).

The second poll was from Noble Predictive Insights. This result had Trump beating Biden by three percent, with fifteen percent undecided.  This poll was conducted between May 7-14 with a sample of 1,003 registered voters across the state.

The Noble poll also factored in other third-party candidates in the race, showing that Trump actually grew his lead over Biden in Arizona with individuals like Robert Kennedy, Jr. and Jill Stein competing for a share of the votes. With these other candidates in the race, the poll showed Trump beating Biden by seven percent (43-36). Kennedy, Jr. took eight percent, and Stein garnered two percent.

NPI Chief of Research David Byler said, “In 2020, Biden argued that he would be a ‘return to normalcy’ president – restoring competence and confidence to a nation in the throes of a pandemic and bitter partisan fighting. Biden’s problem: COVID-19 is gone, but normalcy isn’t back. Americans are worried about inflation and immigration – and, as a result, he’s lost ground in key swing states like Arizona.”     

According to the Real Clear Polling Average, Trump enjoys a 4.6% lead over Biden with different pollsters showing his current margin of victory in Arizona between three and six percent over the past few months. On this day in history on Real Clear’s site, Biden was up four percent over Trump in Arizona in average polling in 2020, and Hillary Clinton enjoyed a one percent advantage in 2016. Trump ended up surpassing Clinton in 2016 to capture the state’s Electoral College votes, while he narrowly lost the state to Biden in 2020.

Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.