Florida polls: Biden 3 points ahead
Undecided voters are leaning toward President Trump
With just 10 days until millions of Florida voters begin casting their presidential ballots, the race couldn’t get any closer, with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden tied with President Donald Trump.
A Florida Atlantic University Poll released Tuesdayfound49% of likelyvoters favoring Biden and46% for Trump, a 3-point difference that amounts to a statistical tie.
FAU pollsters found almost everyone has their minds made up — pro or con — about Trump, Biden and the presidential race with just5% of likely voters undecided.
AMonmouth University Poll, also released Tuesday, also found a 49% to 46% percent contest, assuming voter turnout is about the same as 2016. If voter turnout is somewhat higher than 2016, the poll found the race would be 50% for Biden and 45% for Trump.
As with the FAU poll, either scenario is a statistical tie. Monmouth said 3% of the likely voters it surveyed were undecided.
The FAU and Monmouth results showa trend that’s been seen in other Florida polls since the Democratic and Republican
conventions last month, and reported by political strategists and party leaders from both camps: an exceedingly close presidential race in Florida.
Monmouth reported that 88% said they were “very motivated” to vote in the presidential election and FAUreported 9% of its respondents said there’s a chance they could change their minds.
Of the 5% who said they were undecided in the FAU poll, four-fifths said they
were leaning toward Trump. When they’re factored in, Biden and Trump would be tied at 50%.
Kevin Wagner, an FAU political scientist and research fellow at the university’s Business and Economics Polling Initiative, said the small number of undecided votes is remarkable. “There really are not thatmany persuadables. Both campaigns are going to spend a lot of money in Florida, and the question is, ultimately, is there anyone left to persuade.”
Starting next week, supervisors of elections will begin sending out vote-bymail ballots. As they start arriving in people’s homes, the imperative for the Biden and Trump campaign is getting their supporters to actually cast ballots.
Wagner said the FAU poll shows “that Florida is a highly competitive state, and will continue to be so, I think, through the election.”
TheFAUpoll found72% of Trump voters are extremely excited about the election, compared with 60% of Biden voters who are extremely excited.
Monmouth found registered voters have a more positive view of Biden than Trump, but the numbers show a sharply divided public.
Biden is viewed favorably by 47% and unfavorably by 44%, a net positive
of 3 points. Trump is viewed favorably by 41% and unfavorably by 51% of voters surveyed by Monmouth, a net negative of 10 points.
The candidates are in roughly the same position — very close — that the FAU poll showed them earlier in the year. In March, Trump led 51% to 49%, a Trump advantage of 2 points. In May, Biden led 53% to 47%, a Biden advantage of 6 points.
It’s notanexactcomparison, however, since FAU switched to using “likely voters” for the latest poll. Early in election cycles, pollsters use “registered
voters,” and then switch to likely voters closer to Election Day in an attempt to better focus on people expected to vote.
Monmouth also used “likely voters” to focus on people with a greater chance of voting.
Florida is a critical state. It’s the largest of the battleground states that could go either way, and it awards 29 of the 270 electoral votes required to win the presidency.
And it has a history of exceedingly close races. In 2016, Trump won 49% of the vote statewide to Democrat Hillary Clinton’s 47.8%. Democratic
strategist Steve Schale, in an analysis of the race he posted online this week, noted that more than 51 million votes have been cast for president by Florida voters since 1992. Less than 20,000 separate Republicans and Democrats.
The fine print
The latest results come from an FAU Business and Economics Polling Initiative survey of survey of 631 Florida likely voters conducted online and through automated calls to people with landline telephones on Sept. 11 and 12. It had a margin of error of plus or
minus 4 percentage points.
Monmouth University surveyed 428 Florida voters from Sept. 10 to 13 with live callers, in English and Spanish, to landlines and cellphones. The sample was drawn from a list of registered voters. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
The sample size for subgroups, such as Republicans or Democrats, is smaller, so the margin of error is higher.