Poll: Biden leads by 5 in Florida
Former Vice President Joe Biden is holding onto a 4- to 6-point lead over President Donald Trump in Florida — a must-win state for the president — with less than a week to go until Election Day, a new poll shows.
The Monmouth University survey found the president trailing Biden by 5 points, 45-50, among registered voters, a gap that grew by 1 point under a likely voter model of high turnout and shrank by one point under a likely voter model of low turnout.
The results among registered voters are unchanged from a month ago, showing a stable race in the key battleground state despite heavy campaigning by Trump and efforts to regain momentum in the race.
Despite the stagnant polling, the Monmouth poll found that the gender gap between both candidates has widened.
Biden now leads Trump among women by 60 percent to 37 percent, compared to 53 percent to 41 percent last month. Trump gained among men, however, expanding his lead from 49 percent to 46 in September to 54 percent to 39 percent this week.
Despite fears that Trump could eat into Biden’s lead with Latinos, the poll found the president’s standing with the key voting bloc is virtually the same as it was last month, and it still stands within 1 percentage point of how exit polls show he performed in 2016.
But the former vice president has diminished a sizable chunk of Trump’s advantage with white voters. While the president walloped 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by 32 points among the demographic, Biden is running much closer, but still trails Trump 41 percent to 55 percent, the poll found.
The poll also found that the race remains tight among older voters in Florida, though Trump has made slight gains. Among those 65 and older, Trump edges out Biden 51 percent to 47 percent, compared to a lead of 49 percent to 47 percent last month. In the next oldest age bracket, voters aged 50 to 64, Biden trails 45 percent to Trump’s 52 percent — the poll found both men tied at 48 percent with the age group in September.
Still, Biden holds a substantial lead with voters under 50, growing his lead by 7 points since September.
Florida — and its 29 Electoral College votes — are still up for grabs this year, with the RealClearPolitics average of polls showing Biden with a lead of just half a point there. And both Trump and Biden have hit the state hard, with Biden even deploying former President Barack Obama to campaign there twice this week.
With the coronavirus upending the way Americans are casting their ballots this year, nearly 6-in-10 voters Monmouth surveyed reported already casting their votes.
Biden leads Trump among this group by 20 points, but the president leads 53-38 among voters who have yet to vote, the poll found. Trump’s advantage grew under both likely voter turnout models: He leads Biden 56 percent to 37 percent under a high turnout model, and 61 percent to 32 percent under a low turnout model.
The Monmouth University Poll was conducted by phone from Oct. 24-28, among 509 Florida registered voters. Results from the survey have a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
