Nov. 5 (Reuters) – (This Nov. 5 story has been reclassified to say “States,” not “State,” in paragraph 5.)
Democratic President Joe Biden follows the Republican favorite Donald Trump In five of the six most important battleground states exactly a year before the U.S. election, Americans expressing doubts about Biden’s age and dissatisfaction with his handling of the economy, polls showed published on Sunday.
Additional results from the New York Times and Siena College polls released Monday, however, showed that if Trump was convicted As part of the criminal charges against him, some of his support in some swing states would decline by about 6 percent – “enough, potentially, to decide the election.”
Trump, his party’s favorite for the 2024 nomination as he seeks to win back the presidency, is leading in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania, with Biden leading in Wisconsin, according to Sunday’s results. Biden beat Trump in all six states in 2020, but Trump now leads by an average of 48% to 44% in those states, according to polls.
THE CATCH
While polls gauging the national popular vote have consistently shown Biden and Trump a close racepresidential elections are usually decided by the results of a handful of so-called “swing” states.
Biden’s victories in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – all swing states that Trump won in 2016 – were instrumental in his victory in 2020. Biden would likely need to win again well many of these states to be re-elected.
THE BIDEN CAMPAIGN REACTS
![Final debate of the 2020 US presidential campaign in Nashville](https://cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/XW42Q2YE75I5DHYYS3IVQZG5JU.jpg)
Former Vice President Joe Biden, Democratic presidential candidate, answers a question as President Donald Trump listens during the second and final presidential debate at the Curb Event Center at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, USA , October 22, 2020. Morry Gash/Pool via REUTERS Acquire license rights
“Forecasts more than a year out tend to be a little different a year later. Don’t take our word for it: Gallup predicted an 8-point loss for President Obama only for him to win handily an year later,” said Biden campaign spokesman Kevin. Munoz said in a statement, referring to Democrat Barack Obama’s 2012 victory over Republican Mitt Romney.
Munoz added that Biden’s campaign is “working hard to reach and mobilize our diverse and winning coalition of voters a year after choosing between our winning, popular agenda and the unpopular extremism of MAGA Republicans (the slogan ‘Make America Great Again » by Trump). “We will win in 2024 by putting our heads down and doing the work, not worrying about a poll.”
IN NUMBERS
Biden’s multiracial, multigenerational coalition appears to be fraying, polls show.
Voters under 30 favor Biden, who is 80, by a single percentage point, his lead among Hispanic voters is in the single digits, and his advantage in urban areas is half that of Trump in rural areas, according to surveys.
Black voters — a core Biden demographic — now register 22% support for Trump in those states, a level that The New York Times reported as unheard of in presidential politics for a modern-day Republican.
The margin of sampling error for each state in Sunday’s poll is between 4.4 and 4.8 percentage points, which is greater than Trump’s reported advantage in Pennsylvania.
KEY QUOTE Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, told MSNBC on Monday that any Democratic panic “is really unwarranted” a year before the election.
“The poll is a useful warning to Democrats about the work they need to do. And the fact is, they have their work cut out for them. The economy is the key to all of this,” Sabato said. “It takes time for people to adapt to new economic realities.”
Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw; additional reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Heather Timmons, Will Dunham and Chizu Nomiyama
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