2020 election polls: 20 million early votes cast and Biden takes early lead in Florida
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Donald Trump has less than three weeks to convince voters he deserves another four more years in the Oval Office but continues to trail his Democratic challenger Joe Biden in national opinion polls.
With just 18 days to the election, 20 million ballots have already been cast showing Democrats with an edge in the share of early votes cast, especially in Florida.
Florida is shaping up to be the battleground of the battleground states, with two polls released on Friday showing the state on a razor's edge between the two candidates.
A Hill-Harris poll showed both locked at 48 per cent of support, with the two competing over the four per cent of undecided voters in the Sunshine State.
A Mason Dixon Polling Strategy survey, meanwhile, showed Trump three points behind Biden in Florida. Three per cent is usually considered within the margin of error, so the state could go either way.
It’s a face that Barack Obama has recognized. The ex-president appeared in a Democratic Party campaign ad on behalf of his Biden to warn the election “is going to be close”.
• Trump news - President shares spoof Biden news story after refusing to denounce QAnon conspiracists
Hello and welcome to The Independent’s rolling coverage of the latest polling from the 2020 presidential election race.
Trump 11 points behind Biden in latest national survey
Donald Trump has less than three weeks to convince voters he deserves another four more years in the Oval Office but continues to trail his Democratic challenger Joe Biden in national opinion polls.
The Republican president found himself 11 percentage points behind Biden in the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, released on Thursday, as the two candidates appeared in rival televised town halls on NBC and ABC respectively.
You can read full coverage of how those events played out on our dedicated liveblog, incidentally.
Here’s Andrew Naughtie with a look at the Democrat’s cavernous lead, which was put at a whopping 17 points by The Guardian/Opinium earlier this week.
Election polls: New polls show Biden taking widest lead yet
The president has routinely dismissed polls showing him behind as “fake”
Obama appears in voter registration appeal to warn election 'going to be close’
Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama has meanwhile appeared in a campaign ad for the Democratic nominee, his former deputy, and warned the election “is going to be close” as some 17m ballots have already been cast amid record turnout.
“It’s going to be close. It could come down to a handful of voters just like you,” the 44th president said regarding the fight for the presidency. “So I’m asking you to bring this thing home. Leave no doubt. Vote early.”
Obama has since weighed in on disturbing early voting delays seen in Georgia and elsewhere, underlining the importance of being organised and casting a ballot.
Biden now more popular than Obama in 2008, polls say
The Democratic candidate is now polling at this stage of the race not only far better than Hillary Clinton did in the entire 2016 cycle but also even better than the man for whom he served as vice president.
Nationally, Biden is at 51.5 per cent, according to RCP averages of all the polls. President Obama never hit 50 per cent in his aggregate polling leading into his re-election in 2008. And 19 days before the election the past three cycles, no candidate, not even 2008 Obama, topped 50 per cent as Biden currently does.
According to FiveThirtyEight, Biden’s national polling advantage now is so large that the electoral college is not expected to come into play. While win probability isn’t about the election as much as it is about the accuracy of the polling, the site’s 40,000 simulations have Biden winning in 87 per cent of the time, most commonly by over 400 electoral votes.
Michael Salfino reports.
Biden is now more popular than Obama in 2008, polls say
President Obama never hit 50 per cent in his aggregate polling leading into his re-election in 2008
'Here’s why the 2016 polls were wrong about Trump - and these are the polls you should believe in 2020’
For Indy Voices, George Ajjan assesses the polling landscape as we head into the home straight of this most unpredictable of election years.
The 2020 election polls you should believe about Trump and Biden's chances
Ironically, Trump’s simple-minded cheerleaders who pin their hopes on bad polling might actually be right. But dig into the numbers and another possibility emerges
Florida poll gives Biden razor-thin lead
A Mason-Dixon Polling Strategy poll has found that the Democratic candidate currently enjoys the support of 48 per cent support of Floridians, compared to 45 per cent backing Trump in his adopted home state.
Six per cent of voters were undecided.
Coronavirus promises to dominate November’s ballot - and that’s bad news for Trump
With 65 per cent of the population believing he has done a poor job in fighting Covid-19 - overseeing 215,000 American deaths and even failing to stop an outbreak stalking the corridors of the West Wing and blighting his own health and that of his wife, son and staff - you better believe the president is trying to change the topic away from the pandemic.
65% of Americans think Trump has not taken coronavirus seriously enough, polls show
President’s illness and hospitalisation has refocused the presidential campaign on the pandemic
‘Polls numbers are looking very strong… Massive RED WAVE coming!!!’
Trump tweeted this earlier and I’m not sure what planet he’s on.
Biden more trusted than Trump on coronavirus, race relations and SCOTUS nominations
Yikes, what does that even leave?
Biden more trusted than Trump on coronavirus and SCOTUS nominations, poll finds
The overwhelming majority of American voters believe the nation is deeply divided over its most important values, and many have doubts about the health of the democracy itself
What do 20 million votes already cast say about the 2020 election?
For so many ballots cast in 45 states, it tells us surprisingly little other than more Democrats are voting more early.
According to an analysis of survey ballot data by CNN, Edison Research and Catalist, Democrats lead Republicans in in key states of Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.
In Pennsylvania, Democrats account for more than three-quarters of the ballots.
In Florida, the number of ballots already cast early has doubled compared to 2016. Democrats are ahead in ballots cast in 2020 compared to four years ago, when Republicans had cast more before election day. The shift seems to be driven by less white voters casting their ballot early while more black voters made cast ballots early compared to 2016.
In Michigan, about three and a half times as more people have voted in 2020 compared to 2016. This state’s shift looks to be driven by a split in age, with voters aged over 65 making up less of the early voting bloc in 2020 compared to 2016, while all other age groups – especially 50 to 60 years old – increasing their share of the early voting.
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