Battleground Blockbuster: Joe Biden Holds Commanding Leads in 6 New Key State Polls
Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images, Olivier Douiliery/AFP/Getty Images
Former Vice President Joe Biden ran the table on President Donald Trump in a newly-released set of polls from the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, Arizona, and North Carolina, with double-digit leads in three of them.
On Thursday morning, The New York Times and Siena College released polls that show Biden with 11-point leads in Michigan and Wisconsin, a 10-point cushion in Pennsylvania, 9 points up in North Carolina, 7 points in Arizona, and even with a six-point lead in Trump’s adopted home state of Florida — all states that Trump won in 2016.
As The Times noted in its report on the polls, if Biden were to win these states and hold the states that Hillary Clinton took in 2016, he would win a 333-vote electoral landslide — but wins in any three of them would be enough to beat Trump.
Biden’s leads in these states are numerically solid and fueled by an erosion of Trump’s support with white voters — The Times notes that Trump “is losing among white voters in the three Northern battleground states — not by much, but he won them by nearly 10 points in 2016” — but he still holds a 56 percent approval rating on the economy.
Trump is underwater on other issues polled — his handling of the coronavirus, the George Floyd protests, criminal justice, and race relations — but also prefer Trump on relations with China.
The economy and trade are animating issues in these states, on the one hand making Biden’s leads that much more remarkable, but on the other hand indicating potential openings for Trump if the winds shift on those other issues. The Times also noted that there are large percentages of undecided voters in these states, and that “many of the undecided voters in these states lean Republican, and may end up returning to their party’s nominee.”
But for now, it’s good news for Biden and bad news for Trump, whose campaign has sought to downplay the importance of national polls — where Trump trails by an average of ten points — in favor of state surveys.
