With the general election campaign for the White House already under way, the rivalry between President Biden and former President Trump is intensifying.
In a repeat of the 2020 election, Biden and Trump both handily emerged as their party’s presumed nominees last month, but they will both have to contend with a protracted and challenging campaign. The outcome of this contest, which is predicted to be extremely close, will probably depend on a few battleground states.
Trump vs. Biden surveys
Based on 624 polls, Trump has a 0.8% edge.
Although polls have usually shown Trump ahead of Biden in each of them thus far, Biden won nearly all of them four years ago.
In the seven battleground states, the status of the polls is as follows:
Arizona
In the 2020 presidential contest, Arizona was a crucial state for Democrats to win, and Biden narrowly missed a percentage point to do so. Since 1996, the state had not cast a ballot for a Democratic presidential contender.
Being the only actual battleground state at the southern border of the United States, this year’s race for its 11 electoral votes will be equally intense. According to a February Gallup poll, more Americans than ever said immigration was the most significant issue confronting the nation than any other topic, marking the first time this has happened since 2019.
Since October, the polling average of the state has shown Trump to be up by a small margin. He leads by almost five points in the average and by roughly the same amount in a Wall Street Journal poll that was released on Wednesday.
The quick rise in Hispanic votership was thought to be essential to Democrats’ chances of winning Arizona. However, electoral outcomes and polling data pointing to a nationwide shift to the right among this important group may make it more difficult for Biden to win the state in 2024.
Georgia
Like with Arizona, Democrats received a welcome and long-awaited result in Georgia in 2020 when Biden flipped the state blue for the first time since 1992. He carried it by the closest margin of any state that year, winning by just more than two-tenths of a point.
Trump is ahead by 5 points in the state’s polling average from and has been regularly leading in polls taken of the state. The most recent ones, however, have shown his lead within or close to the margin of error. Trump led by 3 points, 51 percent to 48 percent, among likely voters in a YouGov/CBS News poll last month, but the margin of error was 3.9 points.
He led by 4 points in another poll from Emerson College Polling/The Hill with a margin of error of 3 points. But Trump’s lead widened to 7 points when third-party candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West and Jill Stein were included.
Although garnering support from Black voters was essential to Biden winning the state’s 16 electoral votes, polls this year indicate that he is not doing as well with this group.
A four-year improvement, 17 percent of Black voters chose Trump, according to the CBS survey.
In an attempt to retain this crucial component of its coalition, the Biden campaign has increased its outreach to Black and other voters of color; but, the data as of right now suggest that more work needs to be done.
Michigan
The Great Lakes State supported Trump in 2016 and was a component of the “blue wall” of Midwestern states that had consistently supported the Democratic candidate for president.
Then, in 2020, Biden won by a narrow but respectable margin—nearly three points. Gaining support from autoworkers, union members, and ethnic groups was a crucial part of Biden’s winning strategy in the state.
But this time, Trump’s route to Michigan’s 16 electoral votes has grown more convoluted: according to the polling average, he is up by roughly 4 points.
United Auto Workers gave Biden a significant endorsement, but he still needs to win over union members who are opposed to his views on electric vehicles and who are facing inflation that affects their standard of living.
Additionally, Biden is having trouble winning over Arab American voters who are angry about the administration’s backing of Israel in its conflict with Hamas; in the weeks after the war began in October, his popularity among this group fell. Greater than Biden’s margin of victory in the state of Michigan in 2020, the state is home to one of the greatest communities of people with Middle Eastern and North African descent in the nation.
However, a few recent polls might give Biden more optimism in this regard. In a study conducted by Emerson College Polling/The Hill last month, he and Trump were virtually even when undecided voters had to make a decision. In a poll conducted by North Star Opinion Research in February, they were also tied.
Nevada
Since 2008, Nevada has voted consistently for the Democratic nominee in presidential elections; nevertheless, the state’s votes in 2016 and 2020 were particularly close. With just over a majority of the vote, Biden prevailed in the last election.
In polls, Trump has been ahead in the state, although usually by a small to moderate margin. A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll from last month showed him ahead by barely 2 points, while an Emerson College Polling/KLAS-TV/The Hill poll showed him ahead by 3 points.
The polling average shows Trump ahead by a margin of less than 4 points.
Similar to Arizona, Biden’s win in Nevada can be partially attributed to the backing of Latino voters. Biden’s ability to retain the state in his column will depend on Democrats’ capacity to thwart Republican attempts to gain ground with this demographic.
Biden was leading among Hispanic voters by 5 points, or 44% to 39%, according to the Emerson poll.
North Carolina
For Democrats running for president, the Tar Heel State has been a “close but no cigar” story. Since Barack Obama won it in 2008, the party has lost three consecutive cycles of the state’s electoral votes. But it’s a crucial battleground once more, and Biden’s best chance to win back a state he lost in 2020 is probably here.
Throughout the first three months of 2024, Trump had a significant lead in The polling average—he once reached a 10-point advantage—but Biden has been narrowing the gap lately. Right now, Trump has a lead of almost five points.
In a Marist College poll conducted last month, Trump had a 3 point lead, inside the margin of error; however, in a Journal poll conducted on Wednesday, he had a 6 point advantage.
In October, strategists emphasized the importance of North Carolina’s Black and expanding Latino communities in helping Democrats win the state. One strategist even predicted that the state would receive even more attention than in prior years.
Pennsylvania
Offering 20 electoral votes to the victor, Pennsylvania is the most politically significant state among the battlegrounds and played a critical role in both Trump’s 2016 victory and Biden’s 2020 triumph.
The Keystone State shocked many observers by voting red for Trump in 2016 by less than 50,000 votes, after not having supported a Republican presidential candidate since 1988. Biden managed to reverse it, but only by a meager 1 percentage point.
Pennsylvania polling has been more hopeful about Biden recently than it has been in many other states. According to polling average, Trump’s lead is barely 1.3 points.
Both the CNN/SRSS and the Bloomberg News/Morning Consult polls from last month had Biden and Trump tied. In the Journal poll issued on Wednesday, Trump had a 3-point lead, but in a Susquehanna Polling & Research study conducted last week, Biden had a 5-point lead.
The polling average has continuously shown a close race with neither candidate ahead by more than a few points since other surveys over the course of the months have revealed varying tiny leads for Trump and Biden.
Wisconsin
Only winning by roughly 20,000 votes, Wisconsin was the closest state that Biden recaptured in 2020 to rebuild the Midwestern “blue wall,” but according to recent polls, he is doing considerably better there than in the majority of the other battleground states.
According to polling average, Trump leads by 1.6 points, which is marginally less than the lead he has had since late January. Recent polling conducted in the state has consistently shown findings that are within the margin of error and occasionally show each contender marginally ahead.
The Journal survey showed that Biden was leading exclusively in Wisconsin. In a head-to-head contest, he and Trump were equal at 46%, and in a three-way race, he had an advantage of 3 points over Independent contender Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Although the Biden team has stressed that polling is still too early in the election, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin should now be its main sources of hope.
