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By: Nathaniel Ballantyne
Joe Biden has been leading Trump in national polls since before his nomination. His polling numbers have been consistent in the last 120 days leading to the November 3 presidential elections. The biggest problem is whether the polls can be trusted. Hillary Clinton too was leading Trump in the polls in 2016. Still, the only difference is that Biden consistent polling has been closer to the 50 percent mark, especially in Electoral College battlegrounds states.
If the polls are correct, Trump is projected to lose both the popular votes and Electoral Colle votes by a significant margin. With less than 45 days until election days, Trump must do two things to catch up, peel off votes from Biden and get undecided voters on his side. With the death of justice Ginsburg, both parties now can energize their base and get people to vote.
According to the latest RealClearPolitics average, Biden is sitting at 49.3 percent in national surveys and has a 6.2 percentage point lead over President Donald Trump. Biden’s average is much better than Clinton’s 44.9 percent average this time four years ago. Compares to Clinton in 2016, Biden’s polls average has been consistently closer to majority support in enough states to win the Electoral College.
In 2016 Trump took a path to victory that has been foreclosed to him in 2020 as the incumbent. With fewer undecided voters and a lack of a third-party candidates, Trump has no path to victory in November. He is in the low to mid 40’s about where he was at this time four years ago, and he is running out of time.
Biden is leading Trump in Pennsylvania and tied with him at Florida. In Florida, the latest RealClearPolitics average has Biden ahead by nearly two percentage points, 48.7 percent to 47.1 percent. While Biden’s margin is not meaningfully different from Clinton’s 1-point deficit this time four years ago, both Clinton (45.2 percent) and Trump (46.2 percent) were in the mid-40s, thanks to a larger pool of undecided voters.
According to POLITICO, Biden is outperforming Clinton in terms of the margin between him and Trump. His average vote share is also greater than Clinton’s was at this point four years ago. According to RealClearPolitics averages, Biden leads in 10 of the 13 states, trailing Trump only in Georgia, Iowa, and Texas. In Sept. 2016, Clinton also trailed in Arizona, Florida, and Ohio.
In addition to nearing 49 percent in Florida, Biden is at 49.2 percent in Arizona, 47.8 percent in Michigan, 51.6 percent in Minnesota, 48 percent in New Hampshire, 49 percent in Pennsylvania, and just over 50 percent in Wisconsin.
Victories in those states, where Biden’s lead over Trump is at least 4 points, would clinch the presidency for the former vice president even if Trump won the other swing states. Suppose Biden won Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In that case, he could afford to cede Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, and Ohio — each of which he leads right now — and still, become the next president.
Trump’s vote share in some states, like Florida, is also a little closer to 50 percent than four years ago. But almost across the board, Biden is outperforming Clinton by more significant margins than Trump is outrunning his 2016 performance.
That means that Trump can’t just rely on the kind of late surge he got four years ago to gobble up undecided or third-party voters. He needs to persuade at least some voters who say they prefer Biden to switch in the closing weeks of the race, a task made more challenging by Trump’s position as the sitting president.
As an incumbent with low approval ratings, Trump has fewer remaining opportunities left to make the kinds of gains he needs, particularly with voting already underway in a handful of states — and set to begin soon in many others.
