Joe leads Trump in latest U.S. poll

President Biden grabbed a 6% lead over Donald Trump in a national poll released Wednesday even as a survey of battleground states painted a gloomier picture of his reelection prospects.

Biden leads Trump 50% to 44% in their likely presidential election rematch, according to the new Quinnipiac University poll.

The survey showed a significant shift toward Biden since a December poll that placed the two candidates as virtually deadlocked.

The fresh lead was powered primarily by a growing gender gap as women moved strongly into Biden’s camp.

Women backed Biden by a 22-point margin, up from 12 points in the prior month.

“The gender demographic tells a story to keep an eye on,” said Tim Malloy, a Quinnipiac polling analyst. “Propelled by female voters in just the past few weeks, the head-to-head tie with Trump morphs into a modest lead for Biden.”

Independents broke 52-40 for Biden, who won the support of virtually all Democrats, while a 7% sliver of GOP voters picked him over Trump.

Mirroring other presidential polls, Republican Nikki Haley outperformed Trump, with voters evenly split in a hypothetical matchup between her and Biden.

The Quinnipiac poll is a bit of an outlier, with most recent head-to-head polls showing Trump with a lead.

Political analysts say polls begin to be more accurate predictors of the fall vote as the parties’ primaries get under way in earnest and the general election edges nearer.

The survey came just hours after a poll of seven battleground states told a very different story.

A Morning Consult poll showed Trump beating Biden by decent margins in all seven swing states and a 6% margin overall in those states.

Trump leads in that survey by a range of 3% in Pennsylvania and Arizona up to an impressive 8% in Nevada and Georgia.