12 Days Out: Biden Leads Over Trump Narrow a Few Ticks in FiveThirtyEight Polling Average

With 12 days to go until Election Day, former Vice President Joe Biden still holds comfortable leads over President Donald Trump in the top national polling averages, but the gap has narrowed slightly since yesterday. 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, Biden’s lead over Trump is unchanged since yesterday, at 7.7 points in the RealClearPolitics average. No new polls have been added, and none have aged out.

But the FiveThirtyEight average, which showed a much smaller recent narrowing trend yesterday, has Biden ticking down slightly to a 9.9-point lead, from the 10.1-point lead the former VP enjoyed as of yesterday’s update. The aggregator added surveys from three pollsters Thursday, one of which had Biden leading Trump by on;y 4.

While RCP’s average can be more volatile, this result appears to confirm a narrowing trend, if a slight one. But Biden is still above 50 percent in both averages. Thursday night’s debate and Trump’s fireworks factory fire of a 60 Minutes interview are events to watch for the first round of polls next week.

Battleground States

Both sites also track state polling, with RCP graphing the polling averages in six battleground states: Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Arizona. In  those averages, Biden has ticked up in all-important Florida, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Michigan, and lost ground in Wisconsin and North Carolina — but still leads in all six states.

Those results are largely consistent with FiveThirtyEight’s state averages, which show narrowing in Wisconsin and North Carolina as well.

But there are new battlegrounds this cycle, or at least Democrats hope so. In Georgia, RCP still has Biden holding a 1.2 advantage over Trump, while FiveThirtyEight has Biden ticking up to a full point lead, from a .8 margin yesterday.

Both averages show a slight narrowing trend over the past week.

In Texas, Trump holds a 4.4-point lead over Biden in RCP’s average, a narrowing of nearly half a point since yesterday, while FiveThirtyEight shows Trump losing nearly a point, from a 1.3 point lead yesterday to a .6-point lead Thursday.

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. But a new South Carolina poll shows Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison leading incumbent Senator Lindsey Graham by two points, 47 percent to Graham’s 45.

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