TRUMP TRIMS BIDEN’S LEAD
Democrat has solidified ‘a good … but not a comfortable’ advantage in last survey before Tuesday
With days remaining in the election, Democrat Joe Biden holds a 5-point lead over Republican President Donald Trump in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, according to the final Morning Call/Muhlenberg College poll, released Saturday.
Biden drew support from 49% of likely state voters, while 44% support Trump, when those leaning toward a particular candidate were included. That’s marginally tighter than last week, when another Muhlenberg survey showed Biden leading Trump 51% to 44%, but consistent with Muhlenberg’s statewide polling since this summer. Biden had a 49% to 45% edge over Trump in an August poll.
The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 5.5 percentage points, which means as low as 43.5% could support Biden and as high as 49.5% could support Trump in a survey of all the state’s registered voters. The poll of
419 likely Pennsylvania voters, conducted Oct. 23-28, tracks with other recent state polls that have shown Biden’s edge tightening slightly.
The 2020 election is more likely to come down to Pennsylvania than any other state, political analysts say, and polls have shown Biden maintaining a low-to-mid-single-digit lead since early summer. As of Friday evening, Trump trailed Biden by 5.1 points in Pennsylvania, according to fivethirtyeight.com’s adjusted polling average. RealClearPolitics.com, meanwhile, shows Biden with a 3.6-point lead.
“Among likely voters in the state, Biden has hung onto a very modest lead, with support around 50% all fall,” said Chris Borick, director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion. “That’s a good number to be at, but not a comfortable number, either. It allows one to see paths by which the president could repeat his victory here in 2016.”
Consider what happened four years ago. Muhlenberg’s statewide survey of Pennsylvania voters in the week before the 2016 election showed Hillary Clinton leading Trump by 4 points when third-party candidates were included — within the margin of error. Fivethirtyeight.com’s final adjusted polling average showed Clinton leading by 3.7 points. RealClearPolitics’ average had Clinton up 1.9 points.
Trump ultimately defeated Clinton by 44,000 of the 6 million votes cast, or less than a percentage point. He was the first Republican to carry Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes since 1988.
But 60% of voters had an unfavorable opinion of Clinton the week before the 2016 election, Borick’s polling shows, while only 35% found her favorable — making her just as unpopular as Trump. In the final two months of the race, Clinton never had greater than 48% who said they would vote for her, and the polls tightened more than they have this year. Perhaps most crucially, there were twice as many voters in 2016 who said they planned to vote third party or said they were undecided.
Biden’s favorability ratings did take a bit of a hit in the past week, with 38% holding a favorable impression and 45% holding an unfavorable impression. In the previous poll, both metrics were at 42%.
Trump’s ratings, however, are worse. As has been the case throughout the campaign, a majority of poll respondents (52%) don’t like Trump, while about 4 in 10 like him.
One positive sign for Trump: his job performance rating in Pennsylvania has improved over the past year despite the coronavirus pandemic, increasing to 45% from 40% last November. And among Trump’s supporters, about 4 in 5 said they are very enthusiastic about voting for the president, whereas about half of Biden’s likely voters said they are very enthusiastic about their choice.
The past two presidential incumbents’ approval ratings have indicated what share of the Pennsylvania vote they earned, Borick said. George W. Bush was polling in the upper 40s in 2004, and Barack Obama was polling in the low 50s in 2012, he noted.
There are about 687,000 more Democrats than Republicans registered to vote in Pennsylvania, about a 7.5-point difference. As for this week’s poll respondents, 47% are registered Democrats, while 42% are Republicans; 41% said they voted for Trump in 2016, while 40% said they backed Clinton.
Borick is confident in his sampling frame and said he would be surprised to see the state break dramatically for either candidate. The one potential blind spot, he said, is if people who are registered to vote but haven’t done so in years turn out in droves for one candidate or the other.
Of note: 11% of respondents in this week’s poll and 14% of respondents in last week’s poll said they did not vote in 2016.
Trump has held a slew of rallies across Pennsylvania in recent weeks, including one Monday in Hanover Township, Northampton County. There, the president told the crowd he will win reelection “almost easily,” claiming “fake news” touts only polls that show him trailing. And he claimed that the only obstacle to again winning Pennsylvania would be “massive fraud.”
Trump will visit an undisclosed location 1:30 p.m. Saturday in Bucks County before holding a 4 p.m. rally at Reading Regional Airport in Bern Township, Berks County.
The Biden campaign has not held as many rallies, but it has spent more than $50 million on Pennsylvania airtime for TV ads, far more than Trump, according to data from the nonpartisan firm Advertising Analytics cited by The Hill.
Doug Emhoff, husband of Biden running mate Kamala Harris, spoke Wednesday in Allentown to campaign volunteers. On Monday, the day before the election, Biden and Harris will visit “all four corners of the state,” the campaign announced Friday.
Other poll findings
Democratic candidates for Congress are slightly more preferred over Republicans in Pennsylvania, Borick’s poll shows, with 46% of likely voters supporting Democrats, and 42% supporting Republicans. That’s a bit tighter than last week.
A Muhlenberg poll last month showed Democratic U.S. Rep. Susan Wild with a 13-point edge over Republican challenger Lisa Scheller in her 7th Congressional District reelection bid.
About 1 in 3 poll respondents report that they have already cast their vote in the 2020 election.
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said that by Friday morning, more than 2.2 million mail-in ballots, or 72% of those requested, had already been returned. That includes 77% of Democrats who requested mail-in ballots and 64% of Republicans who requested mail-in ballots.