LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A new poll shows that former President Donald Trump holds a 15-point lead over Vice President Kamala Harris among likely Arkansas voters.
The poll, which was conducted by Talk Business & Politics and Hendrix College, shows that Trump leads the Democratic nominee by a 55-40% margin.
In the 2020 president election which was won nationally by President Joe Biden, Trump won Arkansas with 62.4% of the vote.
The poll was conducted between Sept. 5-6 before the first and probably only debate between Trump and Harris with 696 likely Arkansas voters responding. The survey has a margin of error of +/- 4.6%.
Roby Brock, editor-in-chief for Talk Business & Politics, said that since Trump has been the leading choice for Arkansas voters in 2016 and 2020 along with the Republican Party's strength in the state, "this result is quite consistent with historical performance.”
But despite the Republican strength in Arkansas, Harris appears to be polling slightly better than previous Democratic candidates. Dr. Jay Barth, a politics professor at Hendrix, said that her campaign could bode well for down ballot races.
"This could have ramifications for down ticket elections, especially if Harris’s relative improvement compared to her Democratic predecessors are concentrated in the parts of the state where competitive state legislative races are playing out," Barth said.
Barth said that Harris has a slight lead in the Second and Third congressional districts, which cover Central Arkansas and Northwest Arkansas respectively. But Trump captures around two in three voters in the First and Fourth districts, which cover more of the rural areas in the state.
“Trump leads Harris handily with all age groups except those 30-44, where she holds a slim majority (53%)," said Robert Coon, who works with Republican candidates. "Republican and Democratic voters prefer their party’s candidate nearly universally, while independents favor Trump by 8-percentage points."
To read more on the poll, click here.