Poll signals strengthening support for Biden over Trump in three Midwest battleground states
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The Ipsos poll shows Mr Biden has maintained or slightly improved his lead over Mr Trump in three Midwestern battleground states over the past few months.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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NEW YORK (REUTERS) - Republican President Donald Trump trails Democrat Joe Biden among registered voters in three Midwestern battleground states that he narrowly carried in 2016 and are seen as crucial to winning November's election, according to an Ipsos public opinion poll conducted exclusively for Reuters.
The poll, which ran from April 15-20 in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, showed 45 per cent of registered voters said they would support Mr Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, while 39 per cent said they would support Mr Trump.
It also found that Mr Biden, vice-president under Mr Trump's predecessor Barack Obama, has an advantage of 3 percentage points among registered voters in Wisconsin, 6 points in Pennsylvania and 8 points in Michigan.
The Ipsos poll shows Mr Biden has maintained or slightly improved his lead over Mr Trump in those states over the past few months, even though his campaign and the presidential primaries have been sidelined by the coronavirus pandemic.
The United States has the most confirmed cases and deaths in the world with at least 821,000 people infected and at least 46,000 deaths.
Mr Biden's advantage in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania over Mr Trump averaged 3 to 4 percentage points in February and March, according to an aggregation of survey results by Real Clear Politics.
That would also suggest that Mr Trump has not experienced an uptick in support in the Midwest, even though he has commanded the public's attention at the helm of the federal response to the coronavirus crisis and sought to cast himself as a "wartime president" fighting an invisible enemy.
A separate Reuters/Ipsos poll found on Tuesday (April 21) that Mr Biden has an 8-point advantage over Mr Trump nationally, as support for him rose nationally in each of the last three weeks while disapproval of Mr Trump's response to the pandemic grew.
To be sure, anything can happen with several months to go before the Nov 3 general election.
State polls in 2016 showed Democrat Hillary Clinton enjoyed wide leads over Mr Trump early in the election cycle in those same Midwestern states before she lost them to Mr Trump on Election Day, all of them by less than a percentage point.
Mr Trump is still a little more popular in the Midwestern battlegrounds than he is nationally, in part thanks to his appeal to some blue-collar white voters.
Yet the number of registered voters who disapprove of Mr Trump outnumber those who approve of him in all three states, the Ipsos poll found.
In Wisconsin, 47 per cent of registered voters approve of the President, while 53 per cent disapprove. In Pennsylvania, 48 per cent approve and 52 per cent disapprove, and in Michigan, 44 per cent approve and 56 per cent disapprove.
The coronavirus is by far the top concern for residents of all three states. More than 70,000 people have tested positive in all three states combined and 4,500 have died.
The poll found that 48 per cent of people living in those states said the coronavirus was the most important problem facing their community, which is more than the number of people who cited other top concerns such as the economy (15 per cent), healthcare (12 per cent) or immigration (2 per cent).
When asked what they thought about the US government's response to the virus, about 47 per cent of registered voters in all three states said they approved of the way Mr Trump was dealing with it - lower than the 67 per cent approval of their state governor's handling of the crisis.
Neither Mr Biden nor Mr Trump appear to have much of an advantage when it comes to public perceptions of who is better suited to lead the country out of the pandemic and the economic damage that has ensued.
About 50 per cent of registered voters said they thought Biden was better for the job, while 47 per cent said it was Mr Trump.
The Ipsos poll was conducted online with 612 registered voters in Michigan, 578 in Pennsylvania and 645 in Wisconsin.
It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points for the entire region and 5 points for each state.
