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Close races in Georgia, Iowa and Texas show President Trump’s vulnerability and suggest that Joseph Biden has assembled a formidable coalition, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll.

Joseph R. Biden Jr.  has resisted pressure to compete for Texas, a huge and complicated state that Democrats believe is unlikely to furnish the decisive 270th Electoral College vote.Credit…Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times

President Trump is on the defensive in three red states he carried in 2016, narrowly trailing Joseph R. Biden Jr. in Iowa and battling to stay ahead of him in Georgia and Texas, as Mr. Trump continues to face a wall of opposition from women that has also endangered his party’s control of the Senate, according to a poll conducted by The New York Times and Siena College.

The New York Times /
Siena College poll

Joe Biden has made significant gains in states Donald Trump won handily in 2016.

Iowa Iowa (n=501)

+9 Trump

+3 Biden 45-42

Georgia Ga. (523)

+5 Trump

Tied 45-45

Texas Texas (653)

+9 Trump

+3 Trump 43-46

Based on a New York Times/Siena College poll of likely voters from Sept. 16 to Sept. 22.

Mr. Trump’s vulnerability even in conservative-leaning states underscores just how precarious his political position is, less than six weeks before Election Day. While he and Mr. Biden are competing aggressively for traditional swing states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida, the poll suggests that Mr. Biden has assembled a coalition formidable enough to jeopardize Mr. Trump even in historically Republican parts of the South and Midwest.

A yawning gender gap in all three states is working in Mr. Biden’s favor, with the former vice president making inroads into conservative territory with strong support from women. In Iowa, where Mr. Biden is ahead of Mr. Trump, 45 percent to 42 percent, he is up among women by 14 percentage points. Men favor Mr. Trump by eight points.

In Georgia, where the two candidates are tied at 45 percent, Mr. Biden leads among women by 10 points. Mr. Trump is ahead with men by a similar margin of 11 percentage points.

Mr. Trump’s large advantage among men in Texas is enough to give him a small advantage there, 46 percent to 43 percent. Men prefer the president to his Democratic challenger by 16 points, while women favor Mr. Biden by an eight-point margin.

There was a significant gender gap in the 2016 election, too, but at that time it tilted toward Mr. Trump because men supported him so heavily, according to exit polls. In the Times poll, Mr. Biden sharply narrowed Mr. Trump’s advantage with men while improving on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 lead with women in Texas and Iowa.

In Georgia, Mr. Biden’s lead with women essentially matched Mrs. Clinton’s final advantage in the 2016 race. But where Mr. Trump carried Georgia men by 23 points four years ago, he was ahead by about half that margin with men in the state in the Times poll.

The overwhelming majority of voters — about nine in every 10 in all three states — say they have definitely made up their minds about whom to vote for, leaving relatively little room for late developments to shift the overarching shape of the race.

The poll, conducted by phone among likely voters from Sept. 16 to 22, had a margin of sampling error of four percentage points for Texas and five in Iowa and Georgia.

Mr. Trump’s tenuous hold on some of the largest red states in the country has presented Mr. Biden with unexpected political opportunities and stirred debate among Democrats about how aggressively to contest states far outside the traditional presidential battleground. Mr. Biden has made efforts so far in a few states that voted emphatically for Mr. Trump four years ago, including Georgia and Iowa, but he has resisted pressure to compete for Texas, a huge and complicated state that Democrats believe is unlikely to furnish the decisive 270th Electoral College vote.

But the presence of competitive Senate races in many of those states has been a powerful enticement to Democrats, including Mr. Biden.

Image
Supporters of President Trump during his visit to Midland, Texas, in July.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times

The lopsided gender dynamics of the presidential contest extend to Senate races in Iowa, Georgia and Texas, with Republican incumbents facing strong challenges from Democratic candidates favored heavily by women. The gender gap is pronounced even in Iowa, where both Senate candidates are women. The Democratic challenger, Theresa Greenfield, has a two-point lead over Senator Joni Ernst and an 11-point advantage with women.

The New York Times /
Siena College poll

Incumbent Republican senators are leading their Democratic challengers in two of the three states polled.

Texas Texas (n=653)

37%

M.J. Hegar

43%

John Cornyn

+ 6 Rep.

14% undecided

Georgia Ga. (523)

38%

Jon Ossoff

41%

David Perdue

+ 3 Rep.

16% undecided

Georgia Special Ga. Spec. (523)

19%

Raphael Warnock

23%

Kelly Loeffler

If no candidate receives more than 50%, the top two will advance to a runoff.

7%

Matt Lieberman

19%

Doug Collins

4%

Ed Tarver

Iowa Iowa (501)

42%

Theresa Greenfield

40%

Joni Ernst

+ 2 Dem.

14% undecided

Based on a New York Times/Siena College poll of likely voters from Sept. 16 to Sept. 22.

The poll partly coincided with Mr. Trump’s announcement that he would make a new Supreme Court nomination to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but it was not clear from the survey whether voters had a particularly strong reaction to that possibility.

Mary McKinney, 48, of St. Charles, Iowa, said she supported Mr. Trump because of his plain-spoken manner but felt the Supreme Court process was moving “a little fast,” adding that she would not support efforts to outlaw abortion.

“I don’t like abortion, but I don’t like a woman being forced to carry a baby due to a traumatic incident, so I guess I’m kind of neutral on that,” said Ms. McKinney, who works at home as a foster parent.

Reflecting the conservative tilt of the states polled, Mr. Trump and his party are in better shape than in most of the others recently polled by The Times, and he may ultimately carry all of them. The president’s approval rating is in positive territory in Texas, and voters are almost evenly split in Iowa and Georgia. That is markedly stronger than Mr. Trump’s standing in core swing states like Wisconsin and Arizona.

Mr. Trump has maintained an enduring advantage over Mr. Biden on economic issues, and that extends to all three states in the Times poll. And where voters elsewhere have heavily favored Mr. Biden over Mr. Trump on the issue of managing the coronavirus pandemic, voters in Texas and Georgia are closely divided on that score. Mr. Biden still holds a sizable advantage on the issue in Iowa.

In Georgia and Texas, the election is also split along racial lines. Mr. Trump is winning about two-thirds of white voters in both Georgia and Texas, while Mr. Biden leads by enormous margins with Black voters in both states. Hispanic voters in Texas favor Mr. Biden by 25 points, 57 percent to 32 percent.

Still, many of the same voters, in heavily white Iowa and two traditionally conservative Southern states, are not as dismissive of systemic racism as Mr. Trump is. In each state, half or more of those surveyed found racism in the country’s criminal justice system to be a bigger problem than rioting.