Poll: Trump easily tops Biden in Florida as he scores well with Hispanics, younger voters

A poll issued Thursday, April 18 by Florida Atlantic University and Mainstreet Research shows former President Donald Trump with a comfortable 8-percentage-point lead over President Joe Biden in Florida.

The poll has Trump at 51% of likely voters with Biden at just 43%. More worrisome for the president, Trump enjoys leads among the various sectors of the Sunshine State electorate, including among Hispanic and younger voters. The poll of 815 people has a 3.3-percentage-point margin of error.

Trump tops Biden by 2.8 percentage points in the 18-to-34 group, 11.5 percentage points in the 35-to-49 group and 13.1 percentage points among Latinos. Even among women, said to be a strength for Democrats elsewhere, Biden leads Trump by just a fraction of 1 percent, 47.8% to 47.6%.

"Florida is a pretty strong state for the former president, and that's pretty well reflected here," said Kevin Wagner Wagner, and FAU political scientist and pollster.

"If Biden is going to have a chance to win this state, he's going to have to do considerably better with younger voters than he's doing. He's going to have to do better with Hispanic voters than he is doing."

The survey also found Biden underperforming among white voters with college degrees, leading Trump by just 47.9% to 46.1%, while getting trounced by the presumptive Republican nominee among white voters without college degrees, 62% to 39.2%.

Moreover, some 67% of those polled listed pocketbook issues — the economy, the cost of living, home insurance and immigration — as their high-priority issues. Abortion, the environment and foreign policy totaled just 23%. That appears significant as polling took place April 15-17, after Trump announced his preference for states rights' preference on reproductive freedoms last week.

This month, the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign stated that Florida "is in play." The poll suggests the president's re-election bid here has a lot of work to do.

"It's not an insurmountable lead," Wagner said. "But it does suggest Florida begins as a pretty strong state for the former president."

Another revelation, he said, is that the candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seems to be that he would have a "significant impact on who wins this state."

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Poll: Trump tops Biden in Florida, leads among Hispanics, younger voters