For Joe Biden to win this election, he will have to win the Blue Wall.
Biden had made gains on Trump in those states, but after the debate, he initially lost ground. However, the latest round of polling tells a different story.
Talking Points…
- Biden poling dip after debate
- Biden making up ground
- Analysis
Just prior to the debate, Biden made a big move in polling, mostly due to Trump’s recent conviction. The reason for the move was primarily because uncommitted independent voters moved over to Biden, giving Biden a 0.2% lead in national polling averages.
But that was not all. Biden had been trailing in every battleground state, but he was suddenly ahead in two states and right on Trump’s heels in several others. After the debate, that all changed, and Trump has moved ahead again by more than 2% nationally and was again leading in every battleground state.
It seemed as though, as long as Trump did not make a misstep, this was again his election to lose. Yet, somehow, Biden started to move the needle in some of the Blue Wall states in polling taken last week. While Trump is still leading the national polling, the real polling that we are interested in is the state polls, where, somehow, Biden has flipped two of the key states Biden needs to get to 270.
In back-to-back polls in June, Trump took a lead against Biden in Michigan, about 3%. That was a fairly big jump for Trump from the post-conviction fallout. The Morning Consult took a poll during the first week of July, and somehow, Joe Biden was 5% ahead of Trump. In the national average of polls, Trump had led Biden by as much as 2.7% through June, but now that lead is down to 0.6%.
Biden is still losing Pennsylvania, which has suddenly become the election's main focus. Biden has actually lost ground to Trump. In national polling, Trump is beating Biden by 3.2%, up from only 0.8% in June. In the same Morning Consult poll, Trump expanded his lead to 7% over Biden.
Wisconsin has always been a tight race, with the largest lead in recent months only being 1.9% in favor of Trump. In the average polling, Trump still leads, but that lead is down to 0.4%. In the Morning Consult poll, Trump went from leading by two points to being down 3% to Biden.
Trump has a fairly commanding lead in the rest of the battleground states. At this point, Trump is still the favorite, but the numbers in those polls are concerning.
As I have stated before, I don’t put too much weight on one poll. I prefer to see the average of a run of polls within a specific period. This poll is the latest, but it is significantly slanted from the polling we have seen, so it may be a true outlier.
There is a chance that these polls are not outliers due to the strong profiles of Governor Whitmer in Michigan and Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) in Pennsylvania. Both have been defending Biden aggressively in their states, but that is exactly why I want to see at least two more polls before pressing the panic button.
Due to Donald Trump's nature, this race was never going to be easy, but for Biden to make that big of a move after such a disastrous week, I am not going to buy it just yet. Show me two more polls that have that direction, and then I start to worry.
