President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are locked head to head in six key battleground states, a new poll finds.
A CNBC/Change Research poll published Wednesday showed the Republican incumbent taking 48% of the vote to Biden’s 47% in a head-to-head matchup among likely voters in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Trump unexpectedly won Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania in 2016, but the Biden campaign believes they can take them back, and Democrats have stepped up attacks on Trump in key battlegrounds in anticipation.
The results are a departure from what other recent polls have shown. According to the RealClearPolitics scoreboard, Biden has been leading Trump both nationally and in most battlegrounds.
The new CNBC poll shows that the coronavirus response and the economy remain critical issues, with 52% calling the government’s response “not aggressive enough.”
More than two-thirds of respondents expressed concern over a lack of widespread testing, reopening the economy too soon, people not abiding by social distancing measures, the unemployment rate, and businesses being unable to survive. Trump had presided over strong economic growth and record-low unemployment until the pandemic hit.
Fifty-six percent strongly support continued social distancing measures, while a further 18% said they somewhat support these. Thirteen percent somewhat oppose them, and 12% strongly oppose the measures.
More than 826,000 coronavirus cases have been identified so far in the United States, according to Johns Hopkins University, and more than 45,000 people have died.
Asked to weigh their concern, most respondents cited their family’s health and safety (72%) above the impact of COVID-19 on their financial situation (28%). The results were similar when asked about the health of the nation (64%) versus the economic toll (36%).
The economic toll has spread to every state, with voters in the most competitive 2020 states especially hard hit. More than 22 million people in the U.S. have requested unemployment assistance since the administration advised closing businesses deemed nonessential in March to “slow the spread.” And in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, the volume of unemployment insurance claims has been high.
Last week, Trump’s most important super PAC, America First Action, spent $10 million launching in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania a series of ads attacking “Beijing Biden” as a China sympathizer.
CNBC/Change Research queried 5,878 likely voters between Friday and Saturday, with a margin of error of plus or minus 1.3 percentage points.
