11 Days Out: Good News For Biden in State Polls, Trump Gets 4-point Bump in Rasmussen Survey

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With 11 days to go until Election Day, former Vice President Joe Biden got some favorable polls in key battleground states, while President Donald Trump ticked up a few approval points in the pro-Trump Rasmussen poll. Here’s what’s happening in the polls today:

The National Picture

It’s important to understand that the FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics polling averages, the leading aggregates of polls, are very different from each other. You can read about those differences here.

As of this writing, the RCP average is unchanged since yesterday, and the FiveThirtyEight average narrowed by a barely-perceptible tenth of a point.

In the coming days, Thursday night’s debate could have some impact on the race, and since post-debate polls showed Biden winning handily, there may be an expectation he will get a bump. But in a race this stable, that expectation may be unrealistic.

Trump also gained 4 net approval points in the Rasmussen poll since Tuesday, putting him at 51 percent approval vs. 49 percent disapproval in a poll whose sampling and methodology generally favors Trump significantly.

Battleground States

Biden retains his lead in the battleground states that RCP tracks: Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Arizona. And while the averages in the states haven’t changed much since yesterday,

But Biden got some good news in a smattering of individual state polls that tend to suggest strength in those battlegrounds. The former VP leads Trump by 7 points in a new Muhlenberg College
poll, from a pollster that 538 rates as “A+.”

He’s also up by 4 in North Carolina and 9 in Michigan in new state polls released on Friday, although a low-rated pollster puts Trump in the lead by 4 in Michigan.

The Senate Picture

RCP’s forecast now shows Democrats with a shot at 54 seats, while FiveThirtyEight has them with a chance at landing on a 55-45 majority — unchanged since our last update. New Senate polls out Friday show Democratic candidates leading or tied in North Carolina, Iowa, and Michigan, while the Montana Senate race shows a 3-point advantage for GOP Sen. Steve Daines.

Check back with us daily for updates on the state of play going into what many agree is the most consequential election in generations.