Trump has narrowed the gap with Biden, poll shows 

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A new poll has found that Donald Trump has narrowed the gap with his political rival, Joe Biden. 

The CNN survey, carried out from August 12-15, found that Democratic candidate Joe Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris had a national 4-point advantage over Trump and Vice President Mike Pence at 50%-46%.

The 4-point advantage given to the Democrats was on the cusp of the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. 

However two other polls – an ABC News / Washington Post poll published Monday and an NBC News / Wall Street Journal poll on Sunday – offered significantly different results. ABC put Biden 12 points ahead and NBC put him nine points clear. 

The CNN poll also studied the 15 crucial battleground states, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. 

It suggested the gap in them had closed even further with Biden given just a 1-point lead over Trump at 49%-48%. 

The movement among voters nationwide towards Trump and Pence since June is concentrated among men and those between the age of 35 and 64.  

The figures show the extreme polarization between sexes and races; Trump has a 16 per cent advantage among men but a 13 per cent deficit among women – who are historically more likely to vote – while he is 16 points clear among white people but down 32 points among people of color. 

College graduates are backing Biden 62 to 35, although non-college graduates are less polarized, with Trump ahead 51 to 43.

In the battleground states, the polarization is more extreme: 61 per percent of men back Trump and 60 per cent of women back Biden, 

The CNN survey indicated that Biden has a smaller lead over Trump than previous polls have shown. 

It marks a major shift as the same poll from June had Biden up 14 points at 55 per cent, and Trump at 41 percent.  

The survey’s results were published on Sunday and comes ahead of the two parties’ major political conventions. 

Among the 72 per cent of voters who say they are either extremely or very enthusiastic about taking to the polls in November, Biden’s advantage over Trump widens to 53%-46%. 

The gap is narrower among voters who live in 15 crucial swing states, where Biden has the support of 49 per cent of registered voters whereas Trump has 48 per cent.

However the poll used the 15 battleground states rather than a more tightly-defined selection of swing states other pollsters have tended to focus on – usually Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona – which are seen as tight fights between both parties.  

In its national findings, the poll suggested Trump has strengthened his support from his partisans to take some independents.

While 8 per cent of Republicans or Republican-leaning independents said they would back Biden in June, now only 4 per cent say they will support the Democratic candidate. 

But the survey indicated that Trump’s voters are a bit more likely to say that they could change their minds by November, with 12 per cent saying they could, while just 7 per cent of Biden’s backers said they were likely to be swayed.   

The poll found that it was men who had changed their mind to lean more towards Trump since June, with 56 per cent backing Trump and 40 per cent backing Biden.

Voters between the ages of 35 to 64 were Biden-leading in June but now tilt towards backing Trump. 

Overall, Trump has advanced his backing among conservatives from 76 per cent to 85 per cent. 

A larger portion of voters said their choice was about Trump rather than about Biden, with 29 per cent of respondents saying their Biden vote is more to oppose Trump and 30 per cent saying they are casting a Trump vote in support of him.

In comparison, just 13 per cent casting a ballot to oppose Biden say it is about him, while 19 per cent of those voting Democrat say their vote is about Biden. 

When asked about the way Trump is handling his job as president, 54 per cent of those asked disapproved and 42 per cent approved.  

Nationally, just 43 per cent of Americans see Trump favorably, while 55 per cent see him unfavorably. This is slightly worse than Biden’s favorability ratings, with 46 per cent favorable to 47 per cent unfavorable even split. 

Biden’s selection of Kamala Harris as his running mate was rated as excellent or pretty good by 52 per cent of those polled. 

57 per cent said it reflects favorably on Biden’s ability to make important presidential decisions. 

The CNN poll was carried out on a random national sample of 1,108 adults reached on landlines or cellphones. 

In comparison, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released Sunday found that 50 percent of US voters intend to vote for Biden this November, compared with 41 percent backing Trump. 

However, the results show that Biden has failed to create much enthusiasm among the electorate as his positive rating stands at 39 per cent – a five point increase from the outlets’ previous poll last month.  

‘This poll is a warning for Democrats and the Biden team that there is still a lot of work to be done,’ Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster who worked on the survey told the Wall Street Journal.  

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