NY Times poll puts Biden ahead in four key swing states

A New York Times survey published Sunday gave Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden the lead over incumbent US President Donald Trump in the four swing states of Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Biden, who has led consistently in recent polls, had his biggest lead in Wisconsin, with 52 percent to Trump’s 41% among survey participants who said they intended to vote or already had done so.

In Pennsylvania, Biden was ahead by 49% to 43%, in Florida 47% to 44%, and in Arizona Biden had 49% support to Trump’s 43%.

The Times survey was conducted together with Siena College between October 25 and 31. It sampled 1,250 people in Wisconsin, 1,250 in Arizona, 1,450 in Florida and 1,860 in Pennsylvania.

For Wisconsin and Florida the margin of error was 3.2%, while for Pennsylvania and Arizona it was 2.4%.

Aside from in Pennsylvania, most of those who responded said they had already voted by mail or used early balloting, ahead of Tuesday’s election.

Out on the campaign trail, Trump was visiting five swing states Sunday in a furious blitz against Biden with just two days left before the election.

Biden focused Sunday on Pennsylvania, a state vital to both men and where the former vice president plans two socially distanced events in Philadelphia.

As Trump continued his exhausting whirlwind of appearances, Democrats hammered the president over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic following the country’s worst week ever, and with more than 1,000 Americans dying daily.

Yet the president shrugged off the seriousness of COVID-19, going so far as to accuse doctors of inflating virus death tolls for profit. More than 230,000 Americans have died in the pandemic.

Both parties publicly exuded confidence amid their final dashes to the finish line.

“We’re going to know on Election Day that a record number of people have probably turned out to vote in this election because they want change,” Biden campaign adviser Anita Dunn said on ABC.

“They want a leader who is going to unite the country, not divide it.”

Trump campaign advisor Jason Miller insisted that Trump would sweep Southern states and that if he then took only one of four key Midwestern states — Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Wisconsin, or Michigan — “he will be re-elected president.”

Trump started his Sunday schedule with successive rallies in Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina, and Georgia, before an unusual 11 p.m. rally in Florida.

On Monday, both Trump and Biden, as well as their running mates, will converge on Pennsylvania, which Trump won in 2016 by less than one percentage point.

Amid the surge of mail-in ballots to be counted, and with legal challenges likely, Pennsylvania is expected to be a focus of prolonged uncertainty — and anxiety — for days after the election.

Democrats have dominated in early voting, but polls show many Republicans plan to vote in-person on Tuesday.

Republican national chairwoman Ronna McDaniel insisted Sunday that the economy — and Trump’s insistence on keeping it open even amid the pandemic — was the central issue.

“Joe Biden is saying we can lock it down, like we’re seeing in Europe, and it will destroy our economy,” she said on CBS. “I think the American people are saying, I can’t afford for the economy to close down.”

Underscoring the high stakes, a record 92 million early votes have already been cast, according to the nonpartisan US Elections Project.

Trump, who has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that mail-in ballots are open to fraud, warned Saturday of “bedlam in our country” if no clear winner emerges quickly in the election.

Biden, meanwhile, told backers it was “time for Donald Trump to pack his bags and go home.”

The election takes place in a deeply divided country, with feelings so raw that gun sales have surged in some areas. Businesses in some cities, including Washington, are protectively boarding windows, and police are preparing for the possibility of violence.

Biden, despite his more cautious and reserved campaign style, has recently pushed Trump onto the back foot in unexpected battlegrounds like Georgia and Texas, a large, traditionally conservative bastion now closer to being a toss-up.

In addition to voting for president, millions of American voters will also be choosing members of the country’s 117th Congress. There are 35 Senate seats up for grabs, as are all 435 in the House of Representatives.

Democrats currently hold power in the House, an advantage they are unlikely to lose, according to experts.

If Biden is elected president and Democrats take control of the Senate, the party will have its hands on all of the biggest levers of federal power in Washington for the first time since the early days of Barack Obama’s presidency.