President Joe Biden is leading former President Donald Trump in critical battleground states, according to a new poll released on Sunday.
Earlier this year, Biden and Trump won enough primary races to secure, respectively, the Democratic and Republican nominations in the 2024 presidential election. Polls have so far shown that the results will be tight as the pair are statistically tied in most surveys or having only marginal leads.
However, battleground states will play a key role in determining the result of the election due to the Electoral College, which awards each state a certain number of electoral votes based on population. A presidential candidate needs to secure 270 electoral votes for victory, and winning the national popular vote does not guarantee success. Surveys from battleground states may be more telling than those of national polls.
A new CBS poll released on Sunday conducted by YouGov showed Biden leading Trump in battleground states with 50 percent versus Trump’s 49 percent in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The poll, with a sample of 2,063 adults in the U.S. and 1,615 registered voters, was conducted from June 5 to 7 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percent among registered voters.
Newsweek has reached out to Biden and Trump’s campaign via email for comment.
According to the poll, likely Biden voters said their main reasoning behind supporting him is to oppose Trump with 54 percent, not necessarily because they like Biden with 27 percent.
However, when compared nationally, the poll shows Trump leads the president with 50 percent to Biden’s 49 percent.
Sunday’s poll comes as other polling of battleground states last month showed Biden trailing Trump or the two candidates neck-and-neck. Bloomberg/Morning Consult survey data released in May showed Trump beating Biden in Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The candidates were tied in Nevada, and Biden was narrowly ahead in Michigan.
President Joe Biden is seen in Belleau, France, on Sunday. Biden is leading former President Donald Trump in critical battleground states, according to a new poll released on Sunday.
SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images
In addition, polling from the Cook Political Report, GS Strategy Group (a Republican polling firm) and BSG (a Democratic polling firm) suggests Trump would likely defeat Biden in six critical battleground states if the 2024 election were to occur in May.
The survey included 3,969 voters in the seven states and was conducted from May 6 to 13. It had Trump in the lead in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania with a tie with Biden in Wisconsin.
However, in June, according to swing state polling by Florida Atlantic University (FAU) and Mainstreet Research, there are signs Biden is gaining ground in three key states.
In Wisconsin, when third-party candidates are included, 38 percent of respondents said they would vote for Biden while 31 percent would vote for Trump, according to the poll. Under the same circumstances in Michigan, 41 percent said they would vote for Biden and 39 percent said they would vote for Trump. In Pennsylvania, Biden would also win with 41 percent of the vote to Trump’s 39 percent.
Biden won in these states by slim margins in the 2020 presidential election, taking all three from Trump after he won the three key states in 2016. In 2020, Biden won Michigan by 2.8 percent of the vote, Pennsylvania with 1.2 percent and Wisconsin with less than 1 percent. Meanwhile, the former president carried North Carolina.
Despite recent polling, Todd Landman, a professor of political science at Nottingham University in the United Kingdom, previously told Newsweek it was “still too far out from the election” to read much into swing state polls.
“The race remains highly volatile, and it is still too far out from the election to make any firm conclusion from changing polls across these swing states,” he said.
Meanwhile, Biden and Trump are set to have their first debate for June 27, with a second one in September.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.