Former President Trump enjoys a slight lead over President Biden in key battleground states following his historic conviction in a New York criminal trial.
According to the latest state-by-state polls conducted by Emerson College and The Hill, Trump has a 4-point lead over Biden in Arizona and Georgia, a 3-point lead in Wisconsin and Nevada, and a 2-point lead in Pennsylvania. Trump has a 1-point lead in Michigan, and the two candidates are neck and neck in Minnesota.
“Our initial polling in several key battleground states since Trump’s conviction last month shows little change, with support for Trump and Biden remaining roughly steady since November,” said Spencer Kimball, executive director of the Emerson College Poll. The results are within the poll’s margin of error.
Trump was convicted in a Manhattan hush-money trial last month, but the legal blow did not dent his lead in the presidential election ahead of a rematch with Biden in November. He is scheduled to be sentenced in early July, just before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
A majority of voters in all seven battleground states surveyed said Trump’s conviction would not affect their vote.
At the same time, majorities of voters in each state said the recent conviction of Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, would not affect their vote.
The president is not involved in the case, which marks the first time a sitting commander in chief’s child has been put on trial. But some Democrats fear the issue could be a blow to Biden, Recreation During the election campaign.
The latest Emerson/The Hill poll also found that independents voted for Trump in all seven states, but Trump’s support among independents has fallen in three states since April: by five points in Arizona, three points in Michigan and eight points in Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, Biden lost independent support by six points in Georgia and five points in Nevada over the same period.
But while Biden is lagging behind Trump in the race for the White House in key battleground states, Democratic Senate candidates are leading their Republican rivals in Arizona, Minnesota, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Democratic Senate candidate Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, beating Republican Kali Lake, is leading Biden by 2 points, as is Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), who is running against Republican candidate Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania, and Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), who is running against leading Republican challenger Eric Hovde in Wisconsin.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) is beating Biden by three points in Minnesota, while Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nevada) is beating the president by seven points in Nevada.
The survey of 1,000 registered voters in each state was conducted between June 13 and 18, and the confidence interval (similar to the margin of error in a poll) for the results was plus or minus 3 percentage points in 19 of 20 states.
