Poll: Biden up 7 on Trump in Pennsylvania

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden holds a 7 percentage-point lead over President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, according to a Quinnipiac poll released Thursday.

Of the likely Pennsylvania voters polled, 51 percent preferred the former vice president compared with 44 percent who said they backed Trump. Just 4 percent of the 1,324 Pennsylvanians surveyed were undecided, and the poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The survey was conducted from Oct. 23 to Oct. 27 — largely prior to the fatal shooting of Walter Wallace on Monday by police in Philadelphia and the ensuing nights of protests and unrest. Trump has sought to capitalize on the fears of violence and chaos among suburban voters in the wake of the event as part of his closing message in the state.

While Thursday’s findings are favorable to Biden in a state that both campaigns believe may be pivotal to winning the Electoral College, they are slightly tighter than other Quinnipiac surveys produced earlier this month that had Biden ahead by 8 and 13 points, respectively.

The Real Clear Politics average in the state has Biden ahead by 4.3 points. The polls covered by that average surveyed voters from Oct. 15 to Oct. 27.

The president also trailed Biden in two out of three other states that Quinnipiac polls whose results were released Thursday. Biden leads Trump 45 percent to 42 percent in Florida and 48 percent to 43 percent in Ohio, states where the survey's margin of error was plus or minus 3 points. Trump holds a 1-point advantage in Iowa — a result that sits inside that poll's margin of error, which was also 3 points.

There is still some room for Trump to make up ground in these states. More than 10 percent of Florida respondents did not express a presidential preference; 8 percent of Ohio respondents also expressed no preference.

Quinnipiac’s Iowa poll findings also showed GOP incumbent Sen. Joni Ernst leading her Democratic challenger Theresa Greenfield by 2 percentage points, 48 percent to 46 percent. That’s a reversal from the pollster’s Oct. 7 survey, which had Greenfield at 50 percent to Ernst at 45 percent.

The Quinnipiac surveys were all conducted from Oct. 23 to 27, polling 1,324 likely voters in Florida, 1,225 likely voters in Iowa and 1,186 likely voters in Ohio, reaching respondents via both landlines and cellphones.