A bit over four months from Election Day, Joe Biden leads President Trump in six states likely to decide the White House race, a new batch of New York Times/Siena College polls released Thursday show.
Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, is ahead of Trump in six states the president won in his surprise 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Biden’s state polling leads come more than three months into the coronavirus pandemic, costing more than 120,000 American lives and with the economy in perilous shape, marked by widespread job losses and a stock market showing investors skeptical of long-term U.S. growth.
The New York Times/Siena College polls surveyed 3,870 registered voters in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin from June 8 to 18. “The margin of sampling error for an individual state poll ranges from plus-or-minus 4.1 to 4.6 percentage points,” the Times reported.
Here are the state-by-state margins.
— Arizona: Biden 48%, Trump 41%.
— Florida: Biden 47%, Trump 41%.
— Michigan: Biden 47%, Trump 36%.
— North Carolina: Biden 49%, Trump 40%.
— Pennsylvania: Biden 50%, Trump 40%.
— Wisconsin: Biden 49%, Trump 38%.
The New York Times/Siena College poll comes a day after the same outfit showed Biden holding a wide lead nationally. A New York Times/Siena College poll released Wednesday found Biden ahead of the president by 14 percentage points, 50% to 36%, among registered voters, marking one of the worst results for Trump in a poll this election cycle.
Biden’s lead comes amid what’s been an unusual presidential campaign cycle, with both candidates largely relegated to the sidelines due to the coronavirus.
Save for a few public appearances in Delaware, the state he represented in the Senate for 36 years before two terms as President Barack Obama’s vice president, and in neighboring Pennsylvania, Biden has been absent from the campaign trail.
Trump last weekend tried to forge ahead with a traditional campaign event, a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but it was widely met with derision and mockery after 6,200 people showed up despite expectations for more than triple that amount.
