Is Joe Biden's polling advantage weaker than it appears?


On the surface, the poll released this morning by CNBC/Change Research (a left-leaning polling firm) is filled with good news for the Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. Biden leads President Donald Trump by 8 points (51-43 percent) nationally. Biden is also ahead in all of the most important battleground states (Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, Arizona, and North Carolina). This means that if the polls are accurate and if the election were held today, Biden would beat Trump soundly and easily.
But dig down a little more deeply into the numbers and Biden's lead looks far more tenuous. He's ahead of Trump by a fairly comfortable 6 points in Michigan and 5 in Wisconsin. But he beats Trump by just 3 in Pennsylvania, 3 in Florida, 2 in Arizona, and 1 in North Carolina. (None of those results vary more than 1.5 percentage points from the state's polling average on RealClearPolitics.) And all the battleground states have Trump doing significantly better than his national numbers. That could portend another ominous gap between the popular vote and the all-important electoral vote tally.
Of course that will only happen if the race narrows further. Polls a week or so from now will tell us whether Trump got a crucial bounce out of this week's RNC. (It appears Biden didn't receive one from last week's DNC.) But the CNBC poll points to another possible source of good news for Trump: a decline in concern about the coronavirus pandemic and a slight uptick in approval for the president's handling of it, from 44 percent earlier this month to 47 percent today (his highest COVID-19 approval number since May).
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
What would be the result of an election in which Trump carried the battleground states in which he's currently within 3 percentage points (Pennsylvania, Florida, Arizona, and North Carolina) but lost Michigan and Wisconsin? He would win — with 280 electoral votes to Biden's 258. If, instead, he lost Pennsylvania but turned things around in Wisconsin, where a police shooting in the town of Kenosha has led to three nights of violence and unrest? That would yield the soul-crushing result for Democrats of Trump prevailing with an on-the-nose 270 electoral votes to Biden's 268.
It's going to be a very long, nail-biting 69 days.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.
-
Kim Jong Un’s triumph: the rise and rise of North Korea’s dictator
In the Spotlight North Korean leader has strengthened ties with Russia and China, and recently revealed his ‘respected child’ to the world
-
Crossword: September 13, 2025
The Week's daily crossword puzzle
-
Sudoku medium: September 13, 2025
The Week's daily medium sudoku puzzle
-
Graphic videos of Charlie Kirk’s death renew debate over online censorship
Talking Points Social media ‘promises unfiltered access, but without guarantees of truth and without protection from harm’
-
Trump's drug war is now a real shooting war
Talking Points The Venezuela boat strike was 'not a mere law enforcement action'
-
Truck drivers are questioning the Trump administration's English mandate
Talking Points Some have praised the rules, others are concerned they could lead to profiling
-
Gavin Newsom's Trump-style trolling roils critics while thrilling fans
TALKING POINTS The California governor has turned his X account into a cutting parody of Trump's digital cadence, angering Fox News conservatives
-
Costco is at the center of an abortion debate
Talking Points The decision to no longer stock the abortion pill came following a pressure campaign by conservatives
-
What does occupying Gaza accomplish for Israel?
Talking Points Risking a 'strategic dead-end' in the fight against Hamas
-
Ghislaine Maxwell: angling for a Trump pardon
Talking Point Convicted sex trafficker's testimony could shed new light on president's links to Jeffrey Epstein
-
Does depopulation threaten humanity?
Talking Points Falling birth rates could create a 'smaller, sadder, poorer future'