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Former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Donald Trump in six battleground states with less than two months until the election, but polling isn't always indicative of how the election will turn out.
Ahead of the 2020 election, eyes are on Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Florida, Michigan and North Carolina as the key battleground states. Trump took all six states in 2016 despite polls from September showing that he trailed Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton by a range of less than a percentage point to 7.3 points in every state except Arizona and Florida, where he had the advantage.
Trump flipped Wisconsin in 2016 by 0.7 percentage points, but he appears to be struggling to connect with voters and currently trails Biden by 6.3 percentage points according to Real Clear Politics. It's the highest lead Biden has among the six battleground states for 2020 and is one percentage point higher than where Clinton stood at the same time in 2016. Kenosha, Wisconsin, the scene of Jacob Blake's shooting, saw several nights of looting and rioting and Trump pushed his "law and order" message during a visit, but it doesn't seem to be resonating with voters.
"People aren't as cynical as Trump thinks they are. Biden had a message of healing and compassion ... He's not rooting for the looting and the fires," Lori Hawkins, chair of the Kenosha County Democratic Party, told Politico. "The rhetoric and scare tactics that Trump is putting out there isn't swaying voters as he had hoped."
Biden's home state of Pennsylvania is coming out hard for the former vice president and Real Clear Politics puts him at a 5.7 percentage point lead over Trump, on average, just shy of Clinton's 6.5 percentage point lead at the same point in the 2016 campaign. While the president was able to persuade voters to swing the state from blue to red in 2016, he's struggling to gather support among white college graduates, according to NBC News.
Real Clear Politics put Trump in the lead over Clinton in Arizona by 1.6 percentage points in mid-September 2016, but he's now trailing Biden by about five percentage points. A state where Trump won by 3.5 percentage points in 2016, the president's visit on Monday aimed to court Latino voters with a roundtable and a rally in Phoenix.
A recent poll from OH Predictive Insights published on the same day as Trump's visit painted a bleak picture for the president. Biden led Trump among the 600 voters polled by 10 percentage points with early Democrats and Republicans being surveyed. However, he seems to have approval from his 2016 voters with 87 percent saying they'll cast their ballot for Trump again in November.
Of those who went for Clinton in 2016, 92 percent said they plan to vote for Biden and he appears to appeal to those in Arizona who voted third party. Biden has 68 percent of support from people who voted third party in 2016, compared to 18 percent support for Trump.
Michigan also appears to be boding well for Biden, as he leads Trump on average by 4.2 percentage points, according to Real Clear Politics. Trump flipped the state in 2016 by a narrow margin of 47.3 percent to 40 percent and at this point in the 2016 cycle, Clinton had a 7.3 percentage point lead over Trump.
On Monday, Donald Trump Jr., the president's oldest son, told rally attendees that in order to live the "American dream again" they need to vote for Trump because it's "not going to happen under the radical Democrats."
"Just remember, this isn't your grandparents' Democratic Party. This party doesn't represent working-class Americans anymore. It doesn't even represent decent Americans anymore," Trump Jr. said.
Further south, Florida's shaping out to be a hard-fought race and Real Clear Politics puts Biden, on average, only one percentage point ahead of Trump. The president knows the value of a single percentage in Florida, as he bested Clinton for the state by only 1.2 percentage points in 2016, giving him 29 electoral college votes.
Although Clinton had a 27 point edge over Trump among Hispanic voters in 2016, a recent NBC News/Marist poll put Trump as the demographic's choice for president by four percentage points. However, the two remain essentially tied in the race for the state because Biden's performing vastly better with white college graduates than Clinton did.
Trump led with the demographic by 27 percentage points in 2016, according to NBC News, but Biden now has the lead by three percentage points.
The closest of all six swing states in this list, North Carolina is anyone's for the taking at this point in the election cycle. Real Clear Politics has Biden in the lead but it's only by a razor-thin margin of 0.3 percentage points.
About the writer
Jenni Fink is a senior editor at Newsweek, based in New York. She leads the National News team, reporting on ... Read more