POLL: Trump Now Leading in 5 Battleground States — All of Which Biden Won in 2020
Former President Donald Trump is leading President Biden in five critical, toss-up swing states — all of which Biden won in 2020, a new set of polls revealed.
Surveys by the New York Times, Siena College and the Philadelphia Inquirer found that Trump was more popular than Biden among voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, while Biden led among voters in only one battleground state, Wisconsin.
All six of the battleground states looked at in the polls were won by Biden in 2020, and victories in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in 2024 would be enough for Biden to secure his re-election, as long as he did not lose any of the states he won four years ago.
The poll numbers revealed how issues like the cost of living, the economy, the Israel-Hamas war, and immigration have caused widespread dissatisfaction among Americans, all while raising concerns over Biden’s ability to improve their quality of life.
Nearly 70 percent of voters polled said the country’s political and economic systems need a major overhaul — and only 13 percent of Biden’s supporters believe he would be able to bring about such change during a second term.
Almost 40 percent of Trump supporters polled said the economy or cost of living was the most important issue in the election, with many doubting the Biden administration’s insistence that the economy is improving.
Many of the voters polled even admitted that even while they dislike Trump, he would be the candidate to drive much-needed change.
Trump and Biden are tied among 18- to 29-year-olds and among Hispanic voters, even though over 60 percent of the demographic voted for Biden in 2020.
Trump has also secured 20 percent of black voters’ support — the highest level of black support for any Republican presidential candidate since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to the Times poll.
The former president’s newfound popularity among young and nonwhite voters has seemingly opened up the electoral map, pushing him ahead in more diverse states like Arizona, Georgia and Nevada where Biden was previously successful.
Despite this, Biden seems to have maintained much of his foothold among older and white voters who, as a group, seem to be demanding fewer fundamental changes. As a result, Biden has become more competitive in swing states with a greater population of white people, like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Abortion continues to be a hot-button issue among voters, with 64 percent in battleground states saying abortion should always or mostly be legal, including 44 percent of Trump supporters, according to the polls.
The surveys also found that nearly 20 percent of voters blame Biden more than Trump for the Supreme Court’s decision in 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade, a shocking statistic that will likely drive the president to work to rebuild trust among that group of voters.
Still, voters prefer Biden over Trump to handle the issue of abortion by 11 points, 49 to 38 percent.
Trump, meanwhile, is polling well among voters who believe the political and economic systems need to be torn down, including 2 percent of “very liberal” voters who went for Biden in 2020, according to the polls.
Additionally, about 13 percent of voters who voted for Biden in 2020 but do not plan to again said his foreign policy on the war in Gaza was their most important issue. About 17 percent of those voters said they sympathized with Israel.
The polls surveyed 4,097 registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin from April 28 to May 9.