Trump leads Biden in five swing states – NYT poll

Democrats are polling normally in the Senate races, suggesting voters may see Biden himself as the problem

Former US President Donald Trump would beat the incumbent Joe Biden in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania if the November election were held today, according to the latest poll by the New York Times and Siena College.

The polls showed Trump leading by seven percentage points in Arizona and Michigan, ten in Georgia, three in Pennsylvania and a whopping twelve in Nevada. 

The poll is “littered with bad news for Biden, whether it’s on abortion, the economy, Gaza, and so on,” said the New York Times’ chief political analyst, Nate Cohn. “Trump’s strength is largely thanks to gains among young, black and Hispanic voters,” he added.

Muslim or Arab Americans have also swung around to favor Trump in “huge defections” from the Democrats, mainly driven by Biden’s support for Israel’s offensive against Gaza. Voters who are Muslim or of Middle Eastern/North African (MENA) origin now favor Trump 57% - 25% with 18% undecided, the poll showed; in 2020 56% favored Biden and only 35% backed the then-president. 

“When we asked Arab or Muslim voters who didn’t back Mr. Biden about their most important issue in the race, around 70 percent cited foreign policy or the war in Gaza,” the Times noted.

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Almost 4,100 registered voters were surveyed between April 28 and May 9. According to Cohn, the answers given by voters who used to back Biden but are now turning to Trump were “typical: economy, wars, immigration” and “Biden skepticism.”

The lone outlier was Wisconsin, scheduled to host the Republican convention in July, where Biden appeared to be two points ahead. 

Suggesting that the problem was with Biden himself and not the party, the poll showed Democrats leading the Senate races in Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The “ticket-splitting” was the most pronounced in Nevada, where many likely Trump voters said they backed Senator Jacky Rosen, the incumbent Democrat, over a hypothetical Republican challenger. The GOP is scheduled to pick its Senate candidate there in a June primary. 

The New York Times called this good news for Biden, suggesting that “these voters haven’t yet abandoned Democrats in full, and they might still be available to return to his side.”

Biden won all six swing states in the 2020 election, which Trump has disputed as irregular. The two are now set for a rematch in November, once their nominations are formally confirmed at the party conventions this summer.