Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden gained ground in a couple key Midwest battleground states despite President Donald Trump's efforts to stoke fear among white voters over social unrest, recent polling has revealed
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th September, 2020) Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden gained ground in a couple key Midwest battleground states despite President Donald Trump's efforts to stoke fear among white voters over social unrest, recent polling has revealed.
The former vice president leads by 7.5 percent nationally, a half-point bump from last week, according to the average of the most recent surveys published on poll aggregator Realclearpolitics.com (RCP) as of Sunday evening.
In recent rallies Trump has persistently tried to tie Biden to the nationwide riots that have erupted over police violence against Blacks. However, some pollsters believe recent bad press over remarks about the military and the president's handling of the pandemic have drowned out his message.
According to a Yahoo News/YouGov poll released over the weekend, Biden stretched his lead over Trump to ten percent (49-39%) - a four point jump from the previous survey taken at the end of August. The pollster said one of the likely drivers of the swing was last week's revelations that Trump deliberately downplayed the deadliness of COVID-19 during the early stages of the outbreak.
However, national surveys are less significant than statewide polls due to the nature of the Electoral College format, which requires candidates to win states - not overall popular vote. That said, the state-level polling reveals that if the election were held today, Biden would win by an Electoral College landslide.
Biden leads in eight of the top 10 largest battleground states, the sum of which account for nearly 35% of all electoral votes. Biden's lead is under three percent, however, in three of those states: Florida (+1.2), Ohio (+2.4), and North Carolina (+0.8), according to the RCP averages.
Over the past week, Biden stretched his lead by two points in Michigan, where he is now ahead by 4.2 percent, and gained over two points in Wisconsin, extending his lead in the badger state to 6.4%. His lead has remained steady in Pennsylvania (4.3+), Minnesota (+6.4) and Arizona (+4.5) since September 4.
Trump's lead in Texas (+3.5) and Georgia (+1.3) remained steady although he did chip away at Biden's lead in Florida by a half point.
Despite his dominant positions in surveys, many believe Biden's polling numbers may not reflect the final outcome because of the way the pandemic has affected the election process. Due to COVID-19 fears, many voters will mail absentee ballots as opposed to voting in person. The problem is that a larger number of mail-in ballots are rejected compared to in-person votes, largely due to technicalities such as signature mismatches or the ballots arriving too late.
The next major events on the Calendar ahead of the November 3 election are presidential debates scheduled for September 29, October 15, and October 22.
