- Trump 48% – Biden 41% Marshall 46% – Bollier 42%
- Trump Viewed Favorably by Majority; Biden Viewed Unfavorably by Majority
Loudonville, NY. President Donald Trump holds a seven-point lead, 48-41 percent, over former Vice President Joe Biden in Kansas, which has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since LBJ in 1964. In the race for the open U.S. Senate seat currently held by Republican Pat Roberts, Rep. Roger Marshall, the Republican leads Democratic State Senator Barbara Bollier by four points, 46-42 percent, according to today’s The New York Times/Siena College polls of likely Kansas voters.
“Kansans have only voted for the Democratic candidate for president five times since 1900. The good news for Trump: he has a solid single-digit lead. The bad news: He carried Kansas by 21 points four years ago, and that’s the average Republican victory in the last five presidential elections,” said Don Levy, Director of the Siena College Research Institute. “Although Biden has the support of 94 percent of Democrats and a 13-point lead with independents, Republicans support Trump 84-10 percent in a state with nearly twice as many Republicans as Democrats.
“Trump leads by 24 points with men, more than offsetting Biden’s eight-point lead with women. Although Biden leads among non-white voters by 20 points and whites with a college degree by nine points, Trump leads with whites without a degree – expected to be about half the electorate – by 26 points,” Levy said.
“Among the 21 percent of Kansans who have already voted, they support Biden 66-27 percent, while the 78 percent of likely voters who have not yet cast their ballot, favor Trump 54-34 percent,” Levy said. “Urban voters favor Biden by 22 points and suburbanites favor Biden by a narrow three points. Trump leads by 27 points with rural voters.”
Trump has a 51-45 percent job approval rating and a 52-44 percent favorability rating. Biden’s favorability rating is a negative 44-52 percent.
“Trump’s favorability rating with Republicans is not as strong as Biden’s with Democrats, and a majority of independents view Trump unfavorably, while viewing Biden favorably, but overall, given the significantly larger Republican population, Trump is viewed favorably and Biden unfavorably,” Levy said.
“The last Democrat to represent Kansas in the United States Senate did so before WWII. Marshall has a small lead but with six percent undecided and five percent currently saying they’re supporting a third-party candidate, this race is far from over,” Levy said. “As in the presidential race, the Democrat is leading with independents and Bollier is running stronger with Democrats than Marshall is with Republicans.
“While Bollier has a 45-41 percent favorability rating, Marshall has a slightly better 48-37 percent favorability rating,” Levy said. “Kansas Republicans are going to have to come out and vote or hope that Democrats and independents don’t come out in strong numbers if they want to keep their red winning streak intact.”
This New York Times/Siena College survey of Kansas was conducted October 18-20, 2020 by telephone calls in English to 755 likely voters, with a margin of error of +/- 4.0 percentage points. Calls were made to a stratified weighted sample of voters from the L-2 Voter list via both land and cell phones. The data was weighted by party, age, race/ethnicity, education, region, gender and voter likelihood, a computed score that combines voter history, stated voter likelihood and modeled turnout by respondent. Polling support for this project provided by Reconnaissance Market Research and
M. Davis and Co. The Siena College Research Institute, directed by Donald Levy, Ph.D., conducts political, economic, social, and cultural research. SCRI, an independent, non-partisan research institute, subscribes to the American Association of Public Opinion Research Code of Professional Ethics and Practices. For more information, please call Don Levy
at 518-944-0482. Survey cross-tabulations and frequencies can be found at: www.Siena.edu/SCRI/SNY. For additional methodological information, click here.
