Biden maintains lead in Pa. as viewpoints harden
Nearly a month into the official 2020 general election campaign, with their camps moving full steam ahead with frequent rallies in Pennsylvania, President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Bid en have done little to move the needle among Keystone State voters, a new poll shows.
A Franklin & Marshall College poll of 625 voters conducted Sept. 14-20 found Bid en continued to lead Trump by 6 points, 48% to 42%, among likely voters. The poll almost mirrored the results of the one from August that showed Biden leading Trump 49% to 42% among Pennsylvania’ s registered voters.
The state, which has 20 Electoral College votes, gave Trump a victory of 44,000 votes out of more than 6 million cast in 2016. Pennsylvania again is considered a must-win battleground in the Nov. 3 election.
The poll shows a wider Bid en lead than three other recent polls, including a Monmouth College poll that had Biden’s lead as small as 1 point, and a Morning-Call/Muhlenberg College poll that had him up by 4 points.
“The race has been remarkably static. ... But I do think this shows Pennsylvania is competitive, I don’t think there is any doubt about that ,” said poll director G. Terry Madonna, a political scientist and professor at Franklin & Marshall. “We still have debates to occur, and it’s hard to know what will happen.”
He said the recent poll results do not reflect the level of support Trump received in southwestern Pennsylvania in 2016, where margins as large as 2-to-1 in Westmore land County and many surrounding counties helped offset Hillary Clinton’s commanding victories in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County.
Given the timing of his survey, Madonna said it won’t reflect any fluctuations due to the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Trump’s move to fill her seat.
This was the first Franklin & Marshall College poll to screen for likely voters during this election campaign.
Among all registered voters, Biden leads 49% to 40%, a margin twopoints larger than the F&M poll last month.
The Franklin & Marshall College poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 6.5 percentage points for the sample of 625 registered voters and plus or minus 7.8 percentage points for the smaller likely voter sample of 480.
Poll participants who spoke with the Tribune-Review were firm about support for their candidates.
John Rooney, 65, a Republican in Wilkes-Barre who retired from the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, said there is no chance he will change his mind.
“I think Donald J. Trump is doing a great job. He’s doing a great job on the economy, on foreign policy and on the virus,” Rooney said. “I was at two of his rallies in 2016, and so far this year I’ve been to about four of them. I was even waving the flag and banner for Donald when Joe was up in Scranton last week. It was almost all Trump supporters up there lining the road, and there were no Joe Biden supporters. Actually, I almost felt bad for him.”
Martha McGuire, 67, a Republican in Westmoreland County, also said her mind is made up — for Biden, making her one of only 9% of Republicans surveyed who feel that way.
“I absolutely am not going to vote for Trump. Biden has integrity. Trump, I think, is dishonest. He’s phony. I don’t like his morals. I don’t like or respect the man. I don’t like what they’re trying to do to the Supreme Court right now,” said McGuire, a grandmother who retired from the Westmoreland Department of Parks and Recreation. “I think Biden is trying to look out for all the people, not just the people who are in his party. My family, we were always Republicans, but I don’t like what they stand for now.”
Martin Boyer, a 30-year-old cook from Allegheny County, is unemployed and worried about his prospects in the midst of the pandemic. He said he benefited from the Affordable Care Act and liked how President Barack Obama and Biden tried to heal a country that was still reeling from 9/ 11 and the economic downturn.
A Democrat, he said he is voting for Biden.
He is offended that Trump is focusing on the campaign while Americans are still dealing with the threat of COVID-19.
“I think Trump needs to focus more of his energy on COVID and a little less at pointing the finger at Joe Biden and having supreme campaign events,” he said.
William Smith, a 36-year-old IT specialist from Cambria County, echoed those concerns.
“I think [COVID [inline note] covid-19] has to be dealt with before you can do anything else,” he said.
A Democrat, he is voting for Biden.
“It’s more that there is nothing to appreciate about Trump. With Biden, he atleast presents as though he cares about people,” Smith said.
He said Trump may well win his corner of Pennsylvania again. The president’s supporters are definitely the most vocal in his area, he said.
“But there are pockets of support for Biden,” Smith said.