Joe Biden takes lead in states Donald Trump needs for victory

Joe Biden has built up solid leads in several crucial battleground states as older voters abandon Donald Trump, polls suggest.

The polls are a boost for Joe Biden, whose campaign is trying to work out the best way to take on Donald Trump with the candidate confined to his Delaware home because of the coronavirus. Picture: AFP

Former US vice-president Joe Biden has built up solid leads in several crucial battleground states as older voters abandon President Donald Trump, polls suggest.

A series of surveys in states that Hillary Clinton lost to Mr Trump in 2016 put Mr Biden ahead of the President, despite criticism for a campaign that has so far struggled to be heard through the corona­virus crisis.

Mr Biden has an eight-percentage-point lead in Pennsylvania and Michigan, according to a Fox poll. Democrats were stunned to lose the states in 2016, both of which had voted for the party’s candidate by big margins in every previous election since 1992.

In Pennsylvania Mr Biden, 77, was on 50 per cent against the President’s 42 per cent, the poll said. The state has 20 votes in the electoral college, where states are ranked by population, making it the fifth-biggest prize on election day. In 2016, Mr Trump defeated Mrs Clinton by about 44,000 votes in a state of almost 13 million people.

The pollster found the same size lead for Mr Biden in Michigan, which Mr Trump won in 2016 by an even finer margin: just under 11,000 votes.

In the neighbouring state of Wisconsin, which Mr Trump won for the Republicans for the first time since Ronald Reagan in 1984, Mr Biden had a three-point lead, according to an Ipsos poll. Mr Biden was on 43 per cent to the President’s 40 per cent.

Even more crucial than any of these states is Florida, which Barack Obama won twice by narrow margins but which Mrs Clinton lost in 2016. While some Democrats believe reclaiming this state is too tall an order and Mr Biden should focus on the so-called rust belt states, a Quinnipiac poll indicated that the Democrats had a good chance of victory there. The poll put the former vice-president up four points, on 46 per cent to Mr Trump’s 42 per cent.

In Florida where 21 per cent of the population is 65 or older, a higher proportion than any other state but Maine, Mr Biden is polling strongly because of improving ratings with older voters. The poll gave him a 10-point lead among that age group, whereas in 2016 Mr Trump beat Mrs Clinton by 17 points among those aged 65 and older.

Yet Mr Biden was also shown to have a wide lead nationwide with young voters, even though most young Democrats preferred his rival Bernie Sanders during the primary contests. A poll by the Harvard Institute of Politics found that Mr Biden had a lead of 60 per cent to 30 per cent over Mr Trump with voters aged between 18 and 29, only slightly slimmer than the 62 per cent to 31 per cent margin that Senator Sanders would have had if he were the nominee.

The polls reverse a recent trend where the President seemed stronger in battleground states than he was in the country overall. In 2016 he lost the popular vote to Mrs Clinton by almost three million, but reached the White House with his unexpected victories in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida.

The Real Clear Politics average of recent national polls has Mr Biden with a six-point lead over the President. If borne out in the November election, that would require Mr Trump to perform much better in the swing states than the polls suggest he is doing now if he is to stay in the White House.

Rachel Bitecofer of Christopher Newport University said that despite coronavirus there had been a “near total lack” of a “rally around the flag effect” for Mr Trump, suggesting there was “something specifically lacking” in his handling of the crisis.

She added: “That is a bad sign for the President, because when a large crisis of this magnitude sweeps in, the public tends to start out forgiving and end it angry. Presidents need that reservoir of goodwill to drain out over time.”

The polls are a boost for Mr Biden, whose campaign is trying to work out the best way to take on Mr Trump with the candidate confined to his Delaware home because of coronavirus. Network news has been generally reluctant to break off from coverage of the virus to show footage of Mr Biden’s livestreamed events.

Meanwhile the President is growing “frustrated” by being confined to the White House and wants to get back on the campaign trail, according to NBC.

THE TIMES