Joe Biden holds bigger September poll lead over Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton had
Surveys show Donald Trump in a weaker overall position than at this point in 2016, but he retains paths to victory.
Donald Trump is drawing more support than in 2016 among Hispanic voters and the white working class. Joe Biden is doing better than previous Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton among seniors and white college graduates.
Add up the changes in voter preferences, as recorded by Wall Street Journal/NBC News polls this month and in September 2016, and the result shows Mr Biden holding a larger lead today than did Mrs Clinton when she faced Mr Trump four years ago — an eight-percentage-point lead for Mr Biden this month, compared with five points for Mrs Clinton. Mr Biden is also in a stronger position in many battleground state polls than was Mrs Clinton.
But a comparison of the polls from the two election years also shows that Mr Trump has room to pull off an electoral college victory without winning the popular vote, as he did in 2016.
Among other reasons: White, working-class voters, or those without a college degree, make up large shares of the voter pool in the swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, and so Mr Trump’s improved strength among that group could help him there. His improvement among Hispanic voters could help in Florida. At the same time, Mr Trump’s standing with some other voter groups has weakened. The big picture is that both national and state polling show his position to be more tenuous than four years ago.
Mr Biden hasn’t trailed Mr Trump at any point this year in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls. Moreover, since mid-May his lead in that average has been larger than Mrs Clinton’s was at any similar point in 2016, except for a week in early August, when his lead was essentially equal.
As of Friday, the former vice- president led Mr Trump by 6.5 points in the aggregate of polls, compared with Mrs Clinton’s three-point lead at the same point four years ago. One big difference is that third-party candidates are a smaller factor this year, taking less than 4 per cent support, compared with 10 per cent in 2016.
“It’s pretty clear: Biden’s position has remained better than Clinton’s was,” said Mark Blumenthal, a polling expert who consults with the survey firm YouGov, adding that polls are a picture of one moment in the race and don’t predict the outcome.
In 2016, Mrs Clinton won the national vote by 48 to 46 per cent, while losing the electoral college. That came as a surprise to many, because her lead over Mr Trump had been as high as seven points in the RCP aggregate just three weeks before the election. It topped three points on election day, close to the popular vote outcome.
There are signs this year that Mr Biden’s lead will prove more durable. Through the summer, no more than 9 per cent of voters have told Journal/NBC News pollsters that they are undecided in the presidential contest or backing a third-party candidate. Mr Biden’s lead during this time has ranged from 7 to 11 points.
By comparison, Mrs Clinton’s leads during the same period of 2016 were usually smaller, and 21 per cent to 24 per cent of voters remained undecided or opted for someone outside the two major parties -- an unusually large and volatile set of voters, who ultimately broke for Mr. Trump or backed third-party candidates.
With fewer voters like this in play this year, their effect on the outcome will likely be more limited.
To Micah Roberts, a Republican pollster who works on the Journal/NBC News poll, the main contours of the electorate have changed little since 2016, and some factors, such as a more unified GOP base, are helping the President.
Mr Trump in September had the support of 91 per cent of Republicans in Journal/NBC polling, compared with 85 per cent at this point in 2016. Negative views of the President outweighed positive ones by 11 points in September, compared with 33 points in 2016.
“Nothing that’s happened in the last three years has budged Donald Trump’s job approval rating,” said Mr Roberts. “It’s low. But he won with a low image. He won with no Democratic support.” “Still,” he added, “some significant event will have to happen, and soon, for Trump to do something beyond his 2016 performance, which was a low-probability type of win.”
Mr Biden is also exceeding Mrs Clinton’s lead in many polls of competitive states. “Step back and look at the averages and squint at them, and basically what you see is that Biden is in a better position than Clinton,” consistent with his slightly larger advantage in national surveys, Mr. Blumenthal said.
In combined polling of six battleground states — Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina and Arizona — Mr Biden holds a lead of 3.6 percentage points, compared with 1.5 points for Mrs. Clinton at a similar point four years ago, RealClearPolitics aggregates show.
In Wisconsin, where Mr Trump won the barest of victories in 2016, Mr Biden held a four-point lead in the two most recent Marquette Law School surveys, in August and early September. Marquette polls in 2016 reported Mrs Clinton leads of six and seven points just before she lost the state. But Charles Franklin, who directs the poll, said he believed this year’s findings are more solid.
About half as many voters are undecided this year, Mr Franklin said, and they break slightly for Mr Biden over Mr Trump, 26 per cent to 19 per cent, when the pollster pushes them on which way they lean. By contrast, undecided voters in Wisconsin ultimately backed Mr Trump over Mrs Clinton, 60 per cent to 20 per cent, with the rest backing a third-party candidate, he said.
Another way to view state polls is to ask where Mr Biden stands if the polls today are understating Mr Trump’s support by the same amounts as in 2016. For example, aggregated polls of Wisconsin just before the election found Mrs Clinton with a lead of 6.5 percentage points, but she lost the state by 0.7 points, a combined polling miss of 7.2 points.
If applied today, Mr Biden’s current 6.6-point advantage in aggregated polls of Wisconsin would actually reflect a narrow Trump lead — potentially stripping Mr. Biden of a state he is counting on to win the Electoral College.
Similarly, Mr Biden’s polling leads in Pennsylvania and Michigan would be cut by more than half, but they would not be eliminated. And his current advantage in Arizona would grow slightly, potentially replacing the electoral votes he could lose in Wisconsin.
A study by the American Association for Public Opinion Research, the trade group for pollsters, found that state polls as a group missed the mark in 2016 in part because many didn’t adjust their results to account for an overrepresentation of college graduates -- a group that largely backed Mrs Clinton — in their samples. Some, but not all, state pollsters have started to make that adjustment this year.
Many uncertainties remain that are hard for polling to capture. Interest in the election is at an all-time high, and both parties are trying to register new voters, creating uncertainties about the shape of the electorate. Voting by mail raises new questions about whether ballots will be submitted properly and meet legal requirements to be counted.
Journal/NBC News polling in September recorded a number of shifts from 2016 among various voting blocs. Mr Trump drew support from 27 per cent of Hispanic voters, compared with 18 per cent in September of 2016. His support among white voters without college degrees hit 59 per cent, six points higher than four years ago but lagging behind the support he ultimately received in the election, as recorded by exit polls.
One of the biggest shifts in Mr Biden’s favour was among women. Despite Mrs Clinton’s status as the first female major party nominee, Mr Biden drew 57 per cent of women voters in September’s survey, five points better than Mrs Clinton’s support in the Journal/NBC news poll four years earlier.
The Wall Street Journal
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