Biden moves within striking distance of Trump in Florida, poll shows

Former President Donald Trump continues to hold an edge among Florida voters, but President Joe Biden is starting to close the gap, according to a new Fox News poll released Thursday.

The poll of 1,075 registered Florida voters, which was conducted from June 1-4, shows Trump leading Biden 50% to 46% in a head-to-head contest in Florida — just outside the survey’s 3-percentage-point margin of error. The results suggest a much closer race in the Sunshine State than other recent polls.

Florida has swung to the right in recent years, prompting national Democrats to reevaluate the time and money they spend in the state, but the poll could help state Democratic leaders make their case that Biden still has a fighting chance in Florida come November.

In response to the Fox News poll, the Florida Democratic Party blasted out a statement insisting that Trump “is in trouble in Florida.”

Trump won the state in 2016 by little more than 100,000 votes, but his margin of victory increased drastically in 2020 when he won Florida by more than 370,000 votes. Since then, Florida Republicans have racked up a roughly 900,000-person voter registration advantage over Democrats, and most polls this year have shown Trump leading Biden in Florida by as much as 15 percentage points.

The Fox News poll still underscored numerous challenges for Biden. While he’s trailing Trump by only 4 points in a head-to-head matchup, that gap grows to 7 points in a multi-candidate field that includes independents Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein.

Biden’s performance among key constituencies — including Hispanics and Black voters — is also slipping. The Fox News survey found Biden with only a 2-point edge among Florida Hispanic voters, whom he won by 6 percentage points in 2020, according to exit polls.

Among Black voters, Biden leads Trump 69% to 29%. He carried 89% of Black voters in Florida four years ago.

And despite Trump’s conviction last week on 34 felony counts in New York, most Florida voters — 64% — say they don’t expect the former president’s guilty verdict to matter much in the election, if at all.

Still, the poll brought other welcome news for Democrats, especially when it comes to a pair of proposed constitutional amendments that will appear on the November ballot.

Sixty-nine percent of respondents said that they will vote in favor of a measure that would safeguard the right to an abortion in Florida up to the point of “fetal viability” — generally understood to be around 24 weeks of pregnancy — after a six-week abortion ban went into effect last month. That amendment will need at least 60% of the vote in November to pass.

Two-thirds of Florida voters polled said they will support an amendment that would legalize recreational marijuana for adults 21 years and older.

The Florida Republican Party has officially come out against both proposed amendments, while Democrats are hoping that voter support for those measures could help boost their prospects in the elections.