By Glynn Wilson –
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Counting down to the final days of the 2020 election, public opinion is holding steady in favor of overturning Donald Trump’s alt-right view of the world, if only by a slim majority.
In the latest Morning Consult poll, Democrat Joe Biden holds onto a 9 point lead among likely voters over Trump in the national popular vote, 52 percent to 43 percent.
The recent trend showing older voters turning against Trump continues to hold. Biden leads Trump by 8 percentage points among voters ages 65 and older, 52 percent to 44 percent.
And in the key battleground states, Biden also has support from the majority of seniors in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
“America’s oldest voters have turned on Trump,” according to Morning Consult and other polls. “The oldest Americans, who have outsize influence in elections due to their higher propensity to vote, helped fuel Trump’s victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016. But four years later, the voting bloc is solidly behind Democratic nominee Joe Biden, contributing to the former vice president’s advantage in states that could trigger the president’s electoral defeat.”
Biden is also still leading in Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, making a Trump path to victory in the Electoral College less likely as the days tick down to the election. Trump leads in South Carolina, but it is hard to see how he could do anything to change the outcome now with only 18 days to go as of this writing.
Biden also leads in Arizona, but it is now within the margin of error along with Georgia, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas.
“Conservative efforts (by Trump) to brand former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris as radical leftists brought limited returns,” the Morning Consult gang says, “as both are still viewed to be more moderate than their conservative counterparts.”
Biden has also reached the 50 percent threshold with independent voters with no party identification.
“Over the past week, Joe Biden has begun to consistently reach 50 percent of the vote share among likely independent voters, the first time that has occurred since daily tracking began in May,” Morning Consult says. “The former vice president currently has a 15-percentage-point lead over President Trump with independents, a significant improvement from earlier in the year.”
In May, Biden’s lead ranged between 2 to 6 points with independents.
Biden leads outright in the four most likely tipping-point states, according to Morning Consult.
“Biden leads by 8 percentage points in Pennsylvania, 5 points in Florida, 7 points in Wisconsin, and 7 points in Michigan — the four states that FiveThirtyEight considers most likely to serve as the tipping point in the presidential race. The Democratic nominee’s lead is outside of the respective margins of error in these four states, and he also leads within the margin of error in the next three most likely tipping-point states (Minnesota, North Carolina and Arizona).”
Biden’s favorability advantage is the largest of the campaign to date, according to Morning Consult.
“With three weeks until Election Day, Biden’s appeal among likely voters is as strong as it’s been since Morning Consult began tracking the race daily in May, as 52 percent say they have a favorable opinion of him. Additionally, the 18-point gap in net favorability (the share with a favorable view minus the share with an unfavorable view) between the two candidates has never been wider. In early May, the favorability gap was as little as 4 points.”
In another trend picked up in the latest polling, the share of Democrats who now plan to vote in person rose 12 percentage points, to 42 percent as election day has inched closer.
In the national presidential favorability ratings, Biden is up +6 and Trump is down -12.
In the generic congressional ballot, Democrats are up +6, 49 percent to 43 percent for Republicans.
Senate Contests
In races for the United States Senate, Democrats lead in Arizona, Colorado, Michigan and North Carolina, while Republicans lead in Texas, and in Georgia and South Carolina the contests are within the margin of error and too close to call at this point.
One disturbing trend is that South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham has opened up a lead over Democrat Jaime Harrison following the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, “becoming one of a handful of Republican incumbents to see their standings improve amid the fight over appointing a new justice to the high court.”
Senator Doug Jones of Alabama, the Democrat from Birmingham, fails to even get a mention in the latest polls, and it seems the national pollsters are writing him off as a loss in the deep red and largely irrelevant state of Alabama with only 9 electoral votes guaranteed to go to Trump.
Methods
Morning Consult is conducting over 4,000 daily surveys with likely voters on the presidential election, congressional elections, candidate favorability, and more. The most recent national data is based on surveys conducted Oct. 12-14 among 15,499 likely voters, and the latest state-level data is based on surveys conducted Oct. 2-11, with between 835-4,785 likely voters per state.
