Trump Carried These States in 2016—But Here's Where the Polls Say He Stands Now

President Donald Trump leads presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in 23 of the 30 states he won in 2016 with fewer than 100 days to go before the 2020 presidential election, recent state polling shows.

Most national polls conducted in July found Biden leading Trump, and the former vice president is also leading Trump in six key swing states: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Trump won all six of those swing states when he defeated former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016, four of which—Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—flipped after former President Barack Obama won them in 2012.

Aside from the battleground states, state polling averages compiled by FiveThirtyEight show Trump is leading in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.

Trump is also in the lead in Idaho, Louisiana, South Dakota and Wyoming, according to polling analyses by The Economist.

FiveThirtyEight's polling averages for Ohio show Biden holds a slim lead over Trump. Though the state went to Trump in 2016, Obama won it in 2008 and 2012. A YouGov poll conducted among Ohio voters between July 21 and July 24 found 46 percent said they would vote for Biden and 45 percent said they would support Trump if the election were held on that day, and a Quinnipiac University poll conducted among the state's voters last month returned similar results.

Though most states outside of the battleground territories show one candidate or the other with a sizable lead, three states' polling averages found Trump's lead over his Democratic competitor is narrow. In Georgia, FiveThirtyEight's compilation of recent state polls show some polls going for Biden and others going for Trump, suggesting the state could go blue for the first time since 1992. While polls published in June and July by TargetSmart, Gravis Marketing and Spry Strategies found Trump in the lead by three or four points, other polls conducted in the last couple of months by Garvin-Hart-Yang Research Group, Fox News and Public Policy Polling said Biden was leading between two and four points in Georgia.

Trump's lead is also slim in Iowa, a state that went to Obama in 2008 and 2012. According to FiveThirtyEight's compilation of recent state polls, Trump is leading among Iowa voters by 0.3 percent, though pollsters at Public Policy Polling and Selzer and Company said he was leading by 1 percent in June.

Texas is emerging as another potential battleground state for the 2020 election. The state has gone to the Republican candidate in every presidential election since 1976, but recent polling by Quinnipiac University, Public Policy Polling and Fox News showed Biden was in the lead among poll respondents. While other polls by YouGov, Spry Strategies and Gravis Marketing found Trump in the lead by between one and five points, Quinnipiac pollsters said the coronavirus pandemic's grip on Texas, a state that federal health officials identified as a COVID-19 hot spot last month, was having a negative effect on voter opinion of their Republican leaders, including Trump.

As with most presidential races, the election will likely come down to the battleground states that flip back and forth between the two parties. Though most polls show Biden is currently leading in all six of the key swing states, the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic and its impact on traditional campaigning practices make it difficult to predict with more than three months to go which candidate Americans will vote into office.