Biden leads Trump nationally, but race much tighter in key states

The U.S. presidential race is much closer than national surveys suggest, according to Reuters/Ipsos opinion polls in battleground states that show Democrat Joe Biden with only a slim lead over President Donald Trump in three highly competitive states and in a dead heat in three others. The online state polls, conducted earlier in September and released this week, found Biden and Trump tied among likely voters in Florida and North Carolina. Biden led by 1 percentage point in Arizona, 3 points in Pennsylvania and 5 points in Wisconsin and Michigan.

All six are critical to determining who wins the Nov. 3 election, given their population size and potential to swing to either party. In each of the states, the difference between the two candidates was near or within the poll’s sampling error, meaning that neither candidate has a clear advantage. Nationally, the latest Reuters/Ipsos conducted on Monday and Tuesday put Biden’s lead over Trump at 8 percentage points among all likely voters. Taken together, the state and national surveys show the 2020 election may wind up with the same mixed result as 2016, with the Democrats receiving a majority of the votes but the Republicans winning the Electoral College and the White House.

The latest Reuters/Ipsos national poll shows that 56% of the country disapproves of Trump’s response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, including 43% who “strongly” disapprove of his performance. Trump’s biggest advantage on the economy was in Florida, where 51% of likely voters said Trump would be better at creating jobs, while 41% believed Biden would be better.

The Reuters/Ipsos state polls were conducted from Sept. 11 to 16. They gathered responses from 565 to 637 likely voters in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

Biden leads Trump nationally, but race much tighter in key states, Reuters, Sep 25