Three polls published within the past 10 days all put Biden ahead of Trump in the general election by anywhere from eight percentage points to 14 percentage points. Polls also put Trump trailing the former vice president in Missouri, where he won by a large margin in 2016, and in six swing states that were key to his 2016 victory.
A New York Times/Siena poll released on June 24 put Biden 14 percentage points ahead of Biden. Of the 1,337 registered voters polled, 50 percent said they would vote for Biden if the election was held today and 36 percent would cast their ballot for Trump. Biden was also a favorite among independent voters, who said they would vote for him over Trump by a margin of 21 percentage points.
Biden leads with every demographic aside from the 50- to 64-year-olds, according to the poll, but when it comes to party loyalty, the two candidates are equals. Both Biden and Trump are leading their competitor with their party’s voters by 85 percentage points.
During the 2016 election, polls overwhelmingly predicted Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton would take the White House, surprising many when Trump came out victorious. Following the release of the New York Times poll and one from Fox News that put Trump 12 percentage points behind Biden, Trump related it to 2016, posting on Twitter that “polls are fake!”
“Sorry to inform the Do Nothing Democrats, but I am getting VERY GOOD internal Polling Numbers,” Trump tweeted. “The @FoxNews Polls are a JOKE! Do you think they will apologize to me & their subscribers AGAIN when I WIN? People want LAW, ORDER & SAFETY!”
In a slightly more recent poll released by NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist on Friday, Biden had a slimmer advantage over Trump. Biden had an eight percentage point lead over Trump, a one percentage point increase in the gap the same poll found on June 5.
Trump was more popular with men with 51 percent of participants picking him, but Biden was more popular with women and had a stronger hold at 60 percent. The poll showed even stronger party support with both candidates receiving more than 90 percent of their respective party’s vote.
If the election was held today, the NPR poll found it’d be a much closer race for the independent vote than the New York Times poll showed. Biden still had the lead over Trump with independents, but it was only by a three percentage point margin.
The most recent poll, conducted by USA Today and Suffolk and released on Tuesday, showed Biden in the lead. With 53 percent to Trump’s 41 percent, Biden had a 12 percentage point lead.
However, poll results showed people who were voting for Trump were more excited to cast their ballot than those who planned to vote for Biden. Only 27 percent of those backing Biden were “very excited” about their candidate, whereas 50 percent of Trump’s supporters are amped up about voting for the president.
The economy, at 20 percent of respondents, was the primary reason for why people were voting for Trump. While voters are less enthusiastic about voting for Biden, the poll found 44 percent of respondents said they were doing so to prevent Trump from winning reelection.
Trump also appears to be in trouble in six battleground states that propelled him to the presidency in 2016. Biden holds a lead over Trump in North Carolina, Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan by a range of six to 11 percentage points, a June New York Times/Siena College poll found.
Back in 2016, Trump won those states by a margin of less than one percent. But, he’s also trailing in Missouri, a state he won by more than 18 points.
A Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group survey released on Tuesday put Biden ahead of Trump by two points in Missouri. In 2016, Trump won 56 percent of the vote in the state, a 10 percentage point increase from the 46 percent of support he received in Tuesday’s poll.
However, Biden’s lead is within the poll’s 3.5 percent margin of error and nearly all of the limited polling conducted in the state puts Trump ahead of his democratic competitor.
While polls show people are trending toward Biden, the USA Today poll found they aren’t entirely confident the vice president can pull off an election victory. Those surveyed predicted Biden would best Trump in November by a slim margin of 45 percent to 41 percent.
“They have seen this movie before, and their doubts about the outcome are rooted in the 2016 general election,” David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk Political Research Center, told USA Today.
Newsweek reached out to the Biden and Trump campaigns for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.
