President Trump is polling better in the critical state of Wisconsin than he did when he won the state in 2016, according to a poll conducted recently by progressive media company Crooked Media and research company Change Research.

“Trump is more popular here [than nationally]. The President’s job approval rating among Wisconsin voters is 48-51%. His personal favorability rating is 45-51%. His approval rating on the economy is 50-48%,” Crooked Media said in a press release on Thursday.

Regarding the candidate whom respondents would vote for in 2020, the survey showed that Trump trails the Democrat candidate by only 1%.

“[Thirty-nine percent] of voters say they’ll ‘definitely vote’ for the Democratic candidate, and 38% say they’ll ‘definitely vote’ for Trump. When we include ‘probably vote’, the Democrat leads 46-45%. Another 3% say they’ll vote for a third party candidate, and 6% are undecided,” the survey said.

The poll found that 94% of those surveyed would vote along the same party line as they did in 2016, Change Research said in a separate press release.

Trump’s 45% is higher than the average 40% who said they would vote for him in 2016, according to RealClearPolitics.

The Crooked Media/Change Research poll also found more good news for Trump: of the “up-for-grabs” voters, independents lean Trump, 43-41%. The third-party voters in 2016 (only 19% of undecided voters) lean Democrat, 41-18%. The 2016 nonvoters (21% of undecided voters) lean Democrat, 45-30%.

Crooked Media’s Dan Pfeiffer, who was a senior adviser to former President Barack Obama, wrote in a blog post about the poll, “Anyone who thinks Donald Trump will be easy to beat in Wisconsin is sorely mistaken, and the path to the White House for a Democrat gets very narrow without Wisconsin.”

However, he added, the poll — which tested which negative messages against Trump worked best — reveals a path to defeating him in 2020.

“[O]ur poll also indicates that there is a wealth of negative information about Trump that causes Wisconsin voters to say that they’re significantly less likely to vote for him,” he wrote. Pfeiffer recommended that an aggressive digital media campaign begin “yesterday.”

“Democrats can thus make gains by: 1. Eroding Trump’s strength on the economy; 2. Hitting him on Medicare cuts; 3. Hitting him on his failure to drain the swamp,” he wrote.

The poll also found that of the Democrat candidates, Elizabeth Warren leads with 29%, Bernie Sanders is next with 24%, and Joe Biden comes in third at 20%.

The poll also found the top issue among Wisconsin is immigration.

The voluntary poll was conducted online August 8-9, 2019, and surveyed 1,966 registered voters and newly eligible voters likely to vote in 2020, as well as 935 likely Democrat primary voters. The margin of error is ± 2.2% for the full sample and ± 3.2% for the Democrat primary voters.