Former Vice President Joe Biden is maintaining single-digit leads in four key battleground states exactly three weeks before Election Day, and is within the margin of error in several additional states won by President Donald Trump in 2016.
A new poll released Tuesday by Morning Consult shows the Democratic presidential nominee leading Trump by eight points in Biden's home state of Pennsylvania, seven points in Wisconsin, seven points in Michigan and five points in Florida. Trump won each of those over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election four years ago, putting him well over the Electoral College vote threshold he needed to win. The latest state-level poll was conducted between October 9-11 among more than 16,000 likely U.S. voters, and reveals Biden's favorability is at its highest percentage of the 2020 campaign.
Biden is also sitting on slight leads over Trump in Arizona, Minnesota and North Carolina, while enjoying a 14-point lead in Colorado. Only 2 percent of voters surveyed said they either "don't know" who they are voting for or plan to vote for "someone else."
A slight majority of voters, 52 percent, said they have a favorable opinion of Biden, versus 56 percent who said they have an unfavorable view of the president. Biden's unfavorable rating is a bit lower at 46 percent, revealing that both candidates haven't moved far from either side of 50 percent since May.
In head-to-head polls conducted by Morning Consult's real-time tracker, Biden has remained ahead of Trump every day since May.
About three in five respondents said they don't believe Trump did enough to prevent his recent infection with the novel coronavirus, which he now claims to be "immune" from after announcing an ambitious campaign rally schedule. A slight majority, 52 percent, of senior voters over the age of 65 in the four battleground states said they will cast their ballot for Biden this year, compared to 44 percent who said the same of Trump. In Florida, Trump ultimately pulled off a 17-point advantage over Clinton among voters 65 and older.
Trump is leading Biden in four other states included in Tuesday's Morning Consult poll, including a two-point advantage in Georgia, a three-point advantage in Ohio, a two-point lead in Texas and a 12-point lead in South Carolina. Four years ago, Trump won the state of Texas by nearly 10 percentage points against Clinton.
A separate polling group, Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight, considers Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Florida to be the four states that are once again most likely to tip the balance one way or the other between the candidates on November 3.
Newsweek reached out to both the Biden and Trump campaigns Tuesday afternoon for additional remarks.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Benjamin Fearnow is a reporter based out of Newsweek's New York City offices. He was previously at CBS and Mediaite ... Read more
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