A "wave of polling" from after the Democratic and Republican conventions crashed down on political obsessives Wednesday, Steve Kornacki said on MSNBC, and it shows that the race between President Trump and Vice President Joe Biden hasn't really changed much. The RealClearPolitics polling average had Biden ahead by 7.2 percentage points Wednesday night, versus 7.4 points a month ago. But "Trump showed in 2016 he could lose the popular vote, win the Electoral College," Kornacki said, and some significant swing state polls also came out Wednesday.
A Monmouth University poll showed Biden with a 3-point edge in Pennsylvania, he noted, and a Fox News poll showed Trump losing by significant margins in Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Arizona. Trump won all four of those states in 2016.
In Arizona, which Trump won by half a percentage point, Biden leads by 9 points in the Fox News poll, 49 percent to 40 percent. Biden has an 8-point edge over Trump in Wisconsin, a state he won by about 23,000 votes. And in North Carolina, which gave Trump a 4-point win in 2016, Biden is now ahead by 4 points, 50 percent to 46 percent.
The polls "include results among likely voters for the first time this cycle," as well as third-party candidates when applicable, Fox News said, and running mates were included in the questions. "These differences mean no apples-to-apples comparison to past survey results."
"Biden's advantage comes from strong support among women and suburban voters," Fox News adds. "Moreover, suburban women in all three states trust Biden over Trump to handle coronavirus and policing/criminal justice." Trump's strength is among white voters without college degrees and rural voters. The Washington Post's David Weigel dug out one number that suggests Trump's "law and order" message isn't selling in the suburbs.
The Fox News poll was conducted by phone Aug. 29 to Sept. 1 under the direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Co. (R), reaching 772 likely voters in Arizona, 722 in North Carolina, and 801 in Wisconsin. The margin of error is ±3.5 percentage points.