Poll signals strengthening support for Biden over Trump in three Midwest battleground states

Republican President Donald Trump trails Democrat Joe Biden among registered voters in three Midwestern battleground states that he narrowly carried in 2016 and are seen as crucial to winning November’s election, according to an Ipsos public opinion poll conducted exclusively for Reuters.

The poll, which ran from April 15-20 in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, showed 45% of registered voters said they would support Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, while 39% said they would support Trump.

It also found that Biden, vice president under Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama, has an advantage of 3 percentage points among registered voters in Wisconsin, 6 points in Pennsylvania and 8 points in Michigan.

The Ipsos poll shows Biden has maintained or slightly improved his lead over Trump in those states over the past few months, even though his campaign and the presidential primaries have been sidelined by the coronavirus pandemic. The United States has the most confirmed cases and deaths in the world with at least 821,000 people infected and at least 46,000 deaths.

Biden’s advantage in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania over Trump averaged 3 to 4 percentage points in February and March, according to an aggregation of survey results by Real Clear Politics.

That would also suggest that Trump has not experienced an uptick in support in the Midwest, even though he has commanded the public’s attention at the helm of the federal response to the coronavirus crisis and sought to cast himself as a “wartime president” fighting an invisible enemy.

Neither Biden nor Trump appear to have much of an advantage when it comes to public perceptions of who is better suited to lead the country out of the pandemic and the economic damage that has ensued.

About 50% of registered voters said they thought Biden was better for the job, while 47% said it was Trump.

The Ipsos poll was conducted online with 612 registered voters in Michigan, 578 in Pennsylvania and 645 in Wisconsin. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points for the entire region and 5 points for each state.

Poll signals strengthening support for Biden over Trump in three Midwest battleground states, Reuters, Apr 23