On Monday, the New York Times and Siena College released a poll of how Donald Trump is faring against three leading Democratic Presidential opponents—Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren—in six critical swing states, all of which Trump won in 2016. The results contain bad news for Warren, despite her strong showing with Democratic-primary voters in Iowa; against President Trump, she performs worse than Biden or Sanders, with Trump leading or tied in five of six swing states. Biden leads or is tied with Trump in five of the six states, while the Times/Siena poll shows Trump and Sanders running essentially even. The Times’ Nate Cohn, who oversaw the poll, wrote of Warren, “not only does she underperform her rivals, but the poll also suggests that the race could be close enough for the difference to be decisive.” Cohn also noted that the poll suggests that Trump may have a greater advantage in the Electoral College in 2020 than he did in 2016, suggesting that the President could again win the election while losing the popular vote.

For further insight into the results, I recently spoke by phone with Cohn. (Cohn and I worked together at The New Republic and remain friends.) During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed why some Biden voters dislike Warren, the odds of a Democratic upset in Texas, and whether other pollsters are making the same mistakes they did in 2016.

What is your biggest takeaway from all of the data you collected?

The President is better positioned in the battleground states than he is nationwide, and remains really competitive in the states likeliest to decide the election, despite all that’s happened to him.

What would you imagine the national numbers are if these are the numbers in the swing states you polled?

Over the summer, we did an analysis of what we thought the President’s approval rating was in every state. And in these states we thought the President’s approval rating was five points better than nationwide. So, if Biden is up two in these states, I would say maybe that he is up seven nationwide. That would make Warren up three nationally.

Michigan and Pennsylvania surprised me a little bit. You have Warren losing by six in Michigan, and Biden tied. Biden is up three in Pennsylvania, while Warren is tied. Why might they be as close or closer than in Wisconsin, which you and others have long talked about as the most likely key swing state?

The first thing I would note is that individual state polls are going to be fairly noisy. And, in general, I would suggest that people take the data collectively rather than focus on the exact order of the states. That said, I could conjure up an argument about how Pennsylvania is a state where Elizabeth Warren’s style of reformist, idealistic progressivism is not likely to play as well as it would in Wisconsin. Pennsylvania is a state that has a tradition of being friendly to establishment Democrats in the primary, like Hillary Clinton in 2008 and 2016, while Wisconsin voted for Bernie in the 2016 primary and Obama in 2008. So I could imagine something like that explaining the difference, if it is real.

And Michigan?

I think the same story could potentially hold there. The other thing I would note about Michigan that is interesting in our sample is that we think the President is doing really well among non-voters in Michigan. It is the only state where the President does better among registered voters than likely voters. And if you narrow it even further, to people who have voted before, Biden’s lead grows even more. Our sample of non-voters is not particularly big in Michigan, but it is conceivable to me that the voters who are on the sidelines of politics there may be an untapped source of strength for the President. Again, it is a single-state poll, and we are talking about a sub-sample of that poll, but that is the story in this particular survey.

Arizona surprised me, too. It’s the only state with Warren leading. Biden is up five among registered voters. Were you surprised?

I was not. Over the summer, we estimated that the President was weakest in Arizona, among all of these states. Remember, this is a poll of registered voters, and so there are a large number of Hispanic voters who are on the sideline there. I think we had Joe Biden with more than a fifty-point lead among Hispanic voters in Arizona. And so in this poll of registered voters you have a more diverse electorate than the one you have seen on Election Day, and that’s an advantage Democrats can claim that they wouldn’t get in a state like Michigan or Pennsylvania, where most of the non-voters are a bunch of white working-class voters who would be relatively favorable to the President.

Would one upshot of what you have said be that, if I told you on Election Day, 2020, that there was a massive turnout, that would imply good news for the President in a place like Michigan, and good news for the Democratic nominee in Arizona or Texas? Or is that too simplistic?

I don’t think that is too simplistic. I am not saying it is a sure thing. It would depend on who is mobilized to the polls. It is not just the opportunity but how you take advantage of it. But I think that, in general, the Democrats have this upside that they have not realized in states like Texas or Arizona, while I think there is a case that it is the reverse for Republicans in the north. Or, at least, the Democrats don’t have that kind of upside.

What do the Arizona numbers make you think about Texas? What was your guess about Trump’s approval over the summer?

When we estimated the President’s standing in Texas over the summer, we thought it was basically the same as it was in Pennsylvania or Michigan or Wisconsin among registered voters. And, again, there is a difference between the registered-voter population in Texas and the one that has ever shown up to vote before. If you look at our poll in Arizona, it is consistent with that. It has Joe Biden up by five in a state that Hillary Clinton lost by almost four. That is a nine-point swing. I would note that Hillary Clinton lost Texas by nine. I don’t think it is crazy that there could be a nine-point swing between the 2016 vote and the registered-voter population in Texas. It could even be more. Texas is a more diverse state. It’s very conceivable to me that we would have found Biden ahead in Texas if we had conducted a poll there.

So you think that, even if the registered-voter advantage wouldn’t translate into Democrats being favored there, it would be close enough that Democrats should compete there?

I would want to have actual data from Texas before making that conclusion and spending the millions of dollars that it will take to compete in Texas. But, I think, if you were to extrapolate from our data, you would think there would be a real opportunity for Democrats in Texas. And I would add that these are polls of people who are registered today, and millions of people are going to register over the next year. That would tend to exaggerate the trends that we see among new voters in this data. Texas may be a narrow Biden lead in registered voters now, but, after another year of young and nonwhite and newly eligible voters, perhaps it would be more than that.