New Poll Shows Biden Leading Trump by 14 Points

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden pays his respects to fallen service members on Memorial Day.

OLIVIER DOULIERY/Getty Images

A New York Times/Siena College poll released Wednesday showed Joe Biden leading by a whopping 14 points—50 to 36—lending further credence to recent indicators that President Donald Trump’s support is eroding nearly four months until Election Day. Polls have shown Biden’s lead of 5 to 7 points starting to stretch out a bit as Trump’s response to the coronavirus grew increasingly absurd and his reaction to anti-police brutality marches more and more out of step with the fast-evolving opinion of Americans. Nearly three-fifths of voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, with independent voters disapproving by two to one, the Times notes, while some 60 percent of voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of race and his response to the protests over the killing of George Floyd.

In addition to an already dire top line number for Trump, putting him in a substantial hole, there are perhaps equally dismal indicators beneath the surface data where Biden has expanded leads in already supportive demographics of the country, as well as managing to make gains in traditional GOP strongholds. The most potentially calamitous inside the numbers trend is Trump’s lead among white voters is down to a single point. That’s astonishing for the GOP and for Trump that has made a (brief) political career of being a self-anointed bellwether of white grievance. Older voters and white voters, two vital vote banks in the Republican coalition, are now wavering on Trump. Voters over the age of 50 are basically split on the two candidates, while those under 50 favor Biden by nearly 30 points. In addition to picking off Trump’s white support, Biden has extended Hillary Clinton’s 2016 leads with Black and Hispanic voters—leading Trump by 74 and 39 percent, respectively. Biden has also surpassed Clinton’s support among women and young voters.

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“Most stark may be Mr. Biden’s towering advantage among white women with college degrees, who support him over Mr. Trump by 39 percentage points. In 2016, exit polls found that group preferred Mrs. Clinton to Mr. Trump by just 7 percentage points. The poll also found that Mr. Biden has narrowed Mr. Trump’s advantage with less-educated white voters,” the New York Times notes. “The exodus of white voters from the G.O.P. has been especially pronounced among younger voters, an ominous trend for a party that was already heavily reliant on older Americans. “Fifty-two percent of whites under 45 said they supported Mr. Biden while only 30 percent said they supported Mr. Trump. And their opposition is intense: More than twice as many younger whites viewed the president very unfavorably than very favorably.”

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