Joe Biden had some good news on Tuesday as polling showed him gaining on Donald Trump in six battleground states, seven months before the presidential election. In response, one leading Democratic strategist said the “Biden bump is real”.
According to Bloomberg News and Morning Consult, Biden now leads Trump by a point in Wisconsin, having trailed by four last month, and is tied in Pennsylvania, where Trump had a six-point lead last month. The two candidates were also tied in Michigan.
In other states likely to decide the presidential election in November, Trump was ahead in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina. Only Georgia, however, showed an increased lead for the presumptive Republican nominee.
Biden was due to campaign in North Carolina on Tuesday.
Trailing Biden in fundraising, Trump had no campaign events scheduled.
The former president did appear in public on Monday, in New York in connection with his criminal trial on 34 charges concerning hush-money payments to an adult film star and a civil fraud case in which he must post a $175m bond while appealing a $454m judgment.
Trump also faces 14 criminal charges related to election subversion and 40 arising from his retention of classified information. He posted a $92m bond in a civil defamation suit arising from a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”.
On Monday, a Biden campaign spokesperson called Trump “weak and desperate – both as a man and a candidate”, adding: “His campaign can’t raise money, he is uninterested in campaigning outside his country club, and every time he opens his mouth, he pushes moderate and suburban voters away with his dangerous agenda.”
The Biden campaign did not comment on the Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll.
Jason Miller, a Trump campaign spokesperson, pointed to Trump’s 47%-43% lead across the seven swing states, telling Bloomberg: “Polling continues to show that voters are sick of Joe Biden’s crushing inflation, porous southern border and his insane EV mandate that will kill the US auto industry.”
For Biden, worrying signs also included a majority of voters with a positive view of Nikki Haley, Trump’s last Republican challenger who has not endorsed him, saying they would vote for Trump in November.
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Encouraging signs for the president included emerging positivity on economic conditions and many voters saying they had recently seen more positive news about Biden, particularly after his combative State of the Union address.
Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist and commentator, said: “[The] election is clearly changing now, moving towards Biden: 10 recent national polls show Biden leading, he’s up one now in [the] Economist poll average, Harris this week finds Biden gaining four, this new Bloomberg/MC polling also finds significant movement towards Biden.
“Biden bump is real.”
In the Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll, around half of Biden voters said they were determined to stop Trump.
Eli Yokley, US politics analyst for Morning Consult, told Bloomberg: “Negative energy motivates people. And the people who are supporting Joe Biden today are much more likely to express that negative energy that energised his 2020 campaign.”