NEW YORK, :Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden leads President Donald Trump in a series of polls released Sunday, remaining ahead nationally and in key states, although some state races remain extremely close.
The New York Times/Siena College polls showed Biden, 77, ahead in Pennsylvania, Florida, Arizona and Wisconsin — all key battleground states that Trump won in 2016.
A CNN poll showed Biden up in Arizona, Michigan and North Carolina, also states Trump won in 2016. In all four states, Biden was seen as the more empathetic candidate and the one more able to unify the country.
An ABC/Washington Post poll had less good news for Biden, showing Trump narrowly ahead in Florida, 50%-48%. The same poll had Biden well ahead, 51%-44% in Pennsylvania.
Emerson College released battleground state polls that showed Biden up in Michigan, but the race in Ohio and Iowa within the margin of error and essentially tied.
But Trump, the 74-year-old Republican, appeared confident on Sunday, tweeting that “our numbers are looking VERY good all over. Sleepy Joe (Biden) is already beginning to pull out of certain states. The Radical Left is going down.”
Biden’s lead is armoured against last-minute developments in the race because of the scale of early and mail-in balloting that has already taken place as the country copes with a resurgence of the coronavirus.
More than 90 million Americans had already cast their ballots as of midday Saturday, according to the United States Election Project. In three of the four states The Times surveyed, a majority of respondents said they had already voted, with Pennsylvania the exception.
The New York Times/Siena College survey also found Biden leading specifically among voters who did not vote in 2016, according to the Times. Those voters support Biden by a 19-point margin in Wisconsin, by 17 points in Florida, by 12 points in Pennsylvania and by 7 points in Arizona.
The survey also found a persistent gender gap between the candidates. While Trump led male respondents in Arizona by 8 points, Biden led among women in the state by 18 points. Biden also continues to win white, college-educated voters by wide margins, leading among those voters by double digits in Wisconsin, Arizona in Pennsylvania. In Florida, he leads the demographic by just 2 points.
Biden also leads among senior citizens by double digits in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In Arizona and Florida, where a large portion of seniors are wealthier retirees from other states, the race is a dead heat among the age group.
Pollsters surveyed 1,451 likely voters in Florida, 1,862 in Pennsylvania, 1,253 in Wisconsin and 1,252 in Arizona. The polls have margins of error of 3.2 percentage points in Wisconsin and Florida, 3 points in Arizona and 2.4 points in Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, an earlier USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll finds that 3 in 4 voters are concerned about the possibility of violence on Election Day. Only 1 in 4 say they are “very confident” that there will be a peaceful transfer of power if President Donald Trump loses to Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
The findings, released Thursday, underscore the challenges the eventual winner might face following the election.
Since the 2016 election, confidence in America’s ability to have a peaceful transfer of power has eroded, as President Trump has repeatedly refused to commit to that.
At this point in 2016, 40 percent of Americans were “very confident” about a peaceful transfer of power.
Now just 23 percent express the same sentiment, according to the poll.
“Voters on both sides traditionally expect a trick-or-treat on Election Day,” David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk Political Research Center, told USA Today. “In this election, there is a much deeper fear of violence not only on Election Day, but for many days thereafter.”
For months, Trump has alleged that the election is riddled with widespread fraud, accusing the Democrats of trying to steal the election through mail-in voting.
The Trump campaign has been calling on supporters to join an “army of poll watchers,” part of an effort to find evidence to back up the president’s claims about voter fraud.
A contested vote could set off a constitutional crisis that would place the fate of the presidency in the hands of the courts, state politicians and Congress.
Democrats have publicly expressed concerns that extremist elements with Trump’s base, including armed militias and white supremacists, resort to violence if the election does not go their way.
Activists on the left have also launched their own “Stopping the Coup” campaign, urging quick action if President Trump tries to claim a false victory.
Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, have recently pleaded with the military to respect a peaceful transfer of power and police forces across America have taken steps to brace for potential disruption at the polls.
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