Trump keeps swing state lead despite criminal trial, Biden losing young voters
Even as former President Donald Trump sat in a New York courtroom defending himself from allegations he falsified his business records to influence the 2016 election, voters in several swing states still say he’s the guy they want in the White House come January of 2025.
According to a New York Times/Siena College poll released Monday, registered voters asked to choose between Trump and President Joe Biden in five of six swing states prefer the 45th President over the 46th.
“Former President Donald Trump now leads President Joe Biden by six points, 49-43% in Arizona, nine points, 50-41% in Georgia and 13 points, 51-38% among likely voters in a two-person race in the latest New York Times/Siena battleground polling. When third party candidates including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are added to the horserace, Trump’s lead grows to 9 in Arizona, to 14 in Nevada and drops to 8 in Georgia,” pollsters wrote.
“The three northern battleground states, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, remain very close as Biden tops Trump by a single point – 3 points with third party candidates in the race – in Michigan while Trump is up by 3 points in Pennsylvania and a single point in Wisconsin,” they said.
Voters in those six states were contacted by phone between April 28 and May 9 — in the midst of Trump’s New York trial over his alleged hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels — with 95% of the over 4,000 registered voters polled via their cell phone.
Pollsters say the economy, which voters were more likely to trust Trump to handle effectively, and the situation at the U.S. border both contribute to Biden’s struggles in these six key-battleground states, while Trump has difficulty among voters worried about reproductive rights.
“As three-quarters of likely voters in these six battleground states say the economy is no better than only fair or poor, large majorities in each state trust Donald Trump to do a better job on the country’s financial well-being than Joe Biden,” pollsters wrote. “While abortion is cited as the third most important campaign issue behind the economy – number one – and immigration, by 64-27%, battleground voters prefer abortion be always or mostly legal rather than always or mostly illegal. At least a plurality of voters – a majority in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – trust Biden more than Trump to do a better job on abortion.”
The war in the Middle East between Israel and the Hamas terrorist network that rules the Gaza Strip is costing Biden with younger voters, the poll showed, especially among those who identify with the Black and Hispanic communities.
“Around 13% of the voters who say they voted for Mr. Biden last time, but do not plan to do so again, said that his foreign policy or the war in Gaza was the most important issue to their vote. Just 17% of those voters reported sympathizing with Israel over the Palestinians,” Nate Cohn, New York Times chief political analyst, said with the poll’s release.
Biden’s problem among those polled seems to be unique to him among Democrats running for a seat in November. Pollsters noted that senate candidates in four of the six states are all out performing the man ostensibly leading the party toward victory.
“Democrats running for the Senate outperform their top of ticket as Ruben Gallego leads Kari Lake by 3 in Arizona, Jacky Rosen is even with Sam Brown in Nevada, Bob Casey holds a 2-point advantage over David McCormick in Pennsylvania and Tammy Baldwin tops Eric Hovde by 7 in Wisconsin. The four Democratic Senate candidates outpace Biden by between one and 13 points,” they wrote.
According to national polling averages presented by RealClearPolitics, Trump leads Biden heading into November’s general election by just 1.2 points.