Biden stretches lead over Trump in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania: poll

A new poll finds Joe Biden stretching his lead over President Trump in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania as late-breaking undecided voters say they intend to back the Democratic presidential nominee. 

The latest survey of likely voters in the three former “blue wall” states from the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison finds Biden nearly doubling his lead in each state compared to last month.

Crucially, Biden is above the 50 percent mark in all three states, while Trump remains mired in the low to mid-40s. 

In Michigan, Biden leads by 10 points, 52 to 42. Five percent of voters remain undecided. The same poll from September found Biden with a 6-point advantage. 

The poll from Wisconsin finds Biden leading 53 to 44, with 3 percent undecided. Biden’s 9-point advantage is up from 4 points in September.

The closest state is Pennsylvania, where Biden leads 52 to 44, with 3 percent undecided. Biden has grown his lead from 4 points in September to 8 points now. 

In addition to the former undecided voters breaking for Biden, he also leads big among those who voted third party in 2016 or didn’t vote at all. Across the three states, Biden leads 54 to 25 among third-party voters in 2016, with 21 percent saying they’ll still support another candidate. Biden leads 64 percent to 29 percent among likely voters in 2020 who did not vote in 2016. 

The Democratic nominee is running up the score among voters who have already cast their ballots, taking 87 percent support in Pennsylvania, 75 percent support in Michigan and 73 percent support in Wisconsin. Trump leads among those who will vote on Election Day, but it’s not enough to make up the difference, as he takes 57 percent support in Michigan, 59 percent in Pennsylvania and 57 percent in Wisconsin. 

There’s a massive gender gap, with Biden leading by about 20 points among women across the three states and Trump leading by about 3 points among men.

Biden has a slight 2-point advantage among independents, and he leads by 9 points among suburban voters. Both of those groups broke for Trump in 2016. 

The Democratic nominee is not quite as dominant among racial minorities as Hillary Clinton was in 2016, but he leads 83 to 12 among Blacks, 67 to 26 among Hispanics and 57 to 33 among other nonwhite voters. 

The University of Wisconsin-Madison survey of 800 voters each in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania was conducted from Oct. 13 to Oct. 21. The margins of error are 3.98 percentage points in Michigan, 4.2 percentage points in Pennsylvania and 3.73 percentage points in Wisconsin.