Former Vice President Joe Biden has strengthened his standing in several states critical to determining the outcome of the 2020 White House race, according to new surveys, as President Donald Trump falls further behind in the very battlegrounds that helped propel him to office in 2016.
The latest results of a series of New York Times/Siena College polls released Thursday represent another boon for the Biden campaign, which has enjoyed commanding leads over Trump in surveys of voters nationwide but remained locked in closer contests with the president’s reelection effort in the swing states he wrestled from Hillary Clinton four years ago.
Across a half-dozen key states where Trump prevailed in 2016 — Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — the president now trails Biden by an average of 9 percentage points, an increase from Biden’s 2-point average advantage in those states in October.
Although the six states account for 101 of the 538 electoral votes available to the candidates on Election Day — a majority of at least 270 are needed to win — they are likely to play an outsized role in selecting the next president. Biden maintains a lead of at least 6 points in all of them, according to the polls:
• In Arizona, which Trump won by 4.1 percentage points in 2016, 48 percent of registered voters polled said they would vote for Biden if the election were held today, while 41 percent say they would vote for Trump — a lead of 7 points for Biden.
• In Florida, which Trump won by 1.3 percentage points in 2016, 47 percent of those polled said they would vote for Biden if the election were held today, while 41 percent say they would vote for Trump — a lead of 6 percentage points for Biden.
• In Michigan, which Trump won by 0.3 percentage points in 2016, 47 percent of respondents said they would vote for Biden if the election were held today, while 36 percent say they would vote for Trump — a lead of 11 percentage points for Biden.
• In North Carolina, which Trump won by 3.8 percentage points in 2016, 49 percent of those polled said they would vote for Biden if the election were held today, while 40 percent say they would vote for Trump — a lead of 9 percentage points for Biden.
• In Pennsylvania, which Trump won by 1.2 percentage points in 2016, 50 percent of respondents said they would vote for Biden if the election were held today, while 40 percent say they would vote for Trump — a lead of 10 percentage points for Biden.
• In Wisconsin, which Trump won by 1 percentage point in 2016, 49 percent of registered voters polled said they would vote for Biden if the election were held today, while 38 percent say they would vote for Trump — a lead of 11 percentage points for Biden.
The state polls Thursday come after a separate Times/Siena survey released Wednesday showed Biden with a lead of 14 percentage points nationally, with 50 percent of those polled reporting Biden as their preferred candidate and 36 percent favoring Trump.
The Times/Siena state polls were conducted June 8-18, surveying 3,870 registered voters in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The margin of sampling error is plus-or-minus 4.1-4.6 percentage points for an individual state poll, and the margin of sampling error for the full battleground sample is plus-or-minus 1.8 percentage points.
Source: politico.com
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