A new Fox News poll shows Donald Trump leading Joe Biden in the battleground state of Arizona as more people say their finances are getting worse and a majority have confidence in the former president's handling of the economy.
Trump holds a five-point lead among Arizona voters in the rematch, 51% to 46%. In March, Trump led Biden 49% to 45%. While the race is within the poll's margin of error, it's notable that Trump's lead remains stable in a state where his support is above 50% and Biden won narrowly in 2020.
Among the 67% who say they are very intent on voting in the presidential race, the former president again leads by 5 points (52% to 47%). The same goes for third-party candidates, where Trump leads Biden 46% to 41%, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is at 8%, and Jill Stein and Cornel West are both at 1%.
Currently, Kennedy and West are not on Arizona's official ballot, but Stein is.
The survey was conducted June 1-4, so all of the interviews were completed after the ruling in Trump's New York hush money trial and nearly all were conducted before President Biden announced his executive orders on immigration on Tuesday.
Here's why Trump has an advantage over Biden in a head-to-head contest.
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Women support Biden by 4 points, but the gap between them and Trump among men (+15) is nearly four times as large.
Biden has a 12-point lead among urban voters, while Trump has more than double that lead among rural voters (+29 points). Trump also has a lead among suburban voters (+3), despite Biden having a double-digit lead among suburban women (+12).
Trump has a 21-point lead among voters under 30, and the two candidates are tied among those over 65. Compared to 2020, Biden has traded broad support from less trusting younger voters for a slight boost among more trusting voters over 65. So far, that tradeoff doesn't seem to be working.
Hispanic voters favor Biden by 8 points (he won by more than double in 2020), while a larger group of white voters favors Trump by 9 points (same as 2020).
White voters without a college degree favored Trump by 21 points, while white voters with a college degree favored Biden by 8 points — both margins larger than in 2020.
Trump has retained slightly more 2020 voters (95%) than Biden (93%) and independents (45% each), but Trump has received slightly more support from Republicans (93%) than Democrats (92%). To Trump's advantage, more Arizona voters now identify as Republicans than Democrats.
“There's been a small but significant trend of Hispanic voters moving away from the Democratic Party since 2020,” said Daron Shaw, a Republican pollster who runs the Fox News poll with Democrat Chris Anderson. “This is important for Biden nationally, but there's also an argument that it could hurt him in Arizona in particular.”
Additionally, Trump is seen as the better choice on the two biggest issues in the campaign: he is favored 20 points over Biden on his handling of immigration and border security, 15 points on the economy, and 11 points on the Gaza war. Meanwhile, voters are more likely to trust Biden on climate change (+11 points), abortion (+6), health care (+4), and election integrity (+4).
In March, 40% of Arizonans felt they were falling behind economically; now that number is up to 48%, with many of them favoring Trump (72%) over Biden (25%).
Biden is also paying the price in overall job evaluations, with disapproval of his performance (58%) exceeding his approval rating (42%) by 16 points.
By comparison, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs has a 54% approval rating and 39% disapproval rating, a 15-point increase. Her approval rating is 20 points higher than Biden's among Republicans, 13 points higher among independents and 4 points higher among Democrats. Hobbs defeated Republican Kali Lake with 50.3% of the vote in the 2022 election.
A state constitutional amendment providing access to abortion will be on the Arizona ballot this fall. Seventy percent of voters say they would vote in favor of such a measure, including 53% of Republicans. Notably, roughly four in 10 of those who voted in favor also support Trump in this binary election.
“The economy and immigration are big issues for Biden in Arizona, but he has strengths and opportunities,” Anderson said. “The popular Democratic governor could be an effective ally, and a ballot issue protecting abortion rights could boost turnout. But ultimately, Arizona looks tough for Biden.”
A majority of 51% believe Trump's hush money trial was fair, and among Arizonans who think Trump's conviction would influence their vote somewhat or very much (just over a third of voters), Biden is significantly more popular than Trump (69% to 28%).
Suburban women, younger voters, Hispanics and Democrats are among those more likely to say a Trump conviction would affect their voting choice.
Among the small subgroup of self-identified independents (those who do not lean toward either the Democrats or Republicans), nearly 6 in 10 believe Trump received a fair trial, 4 in 10 say Trump's conviction would affect their vote, and 5 in 10 are very willing to vote, with their support split 45% to 45% between Biden and Trump.
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Polpuri
So-called double haters (voters who have unfavorable opinions of both Biden and Trump) favor Biden over Trump by 15 points and most of them think Trump's hush-money trial was fair (69%), but only 32% say they are very eager to vote, compared with 67% of overall voters.
Trump's approval rating is a net minus 4 points (47% favorable, 51% unfavorable), while Biden's rating is four times lower, at 17 points (41% to 58%). This is a reversal from four years ago (June 2020), when Biden's approval rating was a net plus 2 points and Trump's was a net minus 10 points.
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Among Arizonans, 15 percentage points more people have an unfavorable view of Kennedy than a favorable one, and nearly one in five people give him an unfavorable rating.
Click here to see the top lines and crosstabs
Conducted June 1-4, 2024 under the joint direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R), this Fox News Poll includes interviews with 1,095 registered voters randomly selected from the Arizona statewide voter file. Respondents were given the option to complete the interview in English or Spanish and speak with a live interviewer on landlines (168) and cell phones (678) or complete the survey online after receiving a text (249). Results based on the full sample have a margin of sampling error of ±3 percentage points. Weights are typically applied to age, race, education, and region variables to ensure demographics are representative of the registered voter population.
Fox News' Victoria Bharara contributed to this report.