Following a national poll that put Joe Biden 14 points ahead of Donald Trump, new battleground state polling released Thursday proved equally as grim for the incumbent.
In fact, of the six states surveyed by The New York Times/Siena, Trump was solidly trailing Biden in every one of them. Worse yet, Trump carried every one of those states in 2016.
They include the three Rust Belt states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, and the three Sun Belt states of North Carolina, Arizona, and Florida. But the Rust Belt states that narrowly provided Trump with his Electoral College victory in 2016 appear to be inching out of reach for Trump, while the Sun Belt states have soured on him considerably. Here's the comparison between 2016 and now:
NYT/Siena Battleground State Poll vs. 2016
|
June 2020 |
2016 |
Michigan |
Biden +11
|
Trump <1 |
Wisconsin |
Biden +11 |
Trump <1 |
Pennsylvania |
Biden +10 |
Trump <1 |
Florida |
Biden +6 |
Trump +1 |
Arizona |
Biden +7 |
Trump +4 |
North Carolina |
Biden +9 |
Trump +4 |
If Biden were to win all six states plus keep those won by Clinton in 2016, he would end up with 333 votes when he only needs 270 to secure the presidency. But as the Times writes, “most combinations of any three of the six states — which include Florida, Arizona and North Carolina — would suffice.”
Trump’s almost singular bright spot in the polling is that he continues to get higher marks than Biden for his handling of the economy, but Trump’s handling of the pandemic and race relations following the killing of George Floyd both poll poorly. Averaged together, Trump draws a 42% approval rating in the six states and a 54% disapproval rating. And here’s the breakdown of how Trump’s approvals fare on specific issues.
If the lesson from 2016 was to focus on the battleground polling over the national polling, this is a brutal set of battleground state data. In addition, Senate Republicans running in the battleground states are being heavily weighted down by Trump.