Former Vice President Joe Biden is ahead of President Donald Trump in three key swing states amid nationwide protests and an ongoing pandemic, new polling data shows.
Three new state polls published Wednesday found Biden leading Trump by single digits in Arizona, Ohio and Wisconsin. In two of the three polled states, the presumptive Democratic nominee's lead was outside the margin of error.
Among voters in Arizona, Biden was found to have a 4-point lead over the president, with 46 percent of state voters telling pollsters they would back the Democratic candidate. Eleven percent said they were either voting for a third party candidate, not voting at all, or still undecided.
A similar number of Ohio voters (45 percent) said they would vote for Biden if an election were held the same day, putting the former vice president just 2 points ahead of Trump and within the poll's margin of error.
However, the gap between the 2020 candidates was far wider in Wisconsin. Forty-nine percent of state voters told pollsters that they would vote for Biden, while only 40 percent backed the president.
When the same poll was conducted in early January, 46 percent of Wisconsin voters favored Biden, putting him just five points ahead of Trump on 41 percent.
Asked which candidate they trusted more on four key election issues—the economy, immigration, coronavirus and race relations—the president was consistently more trusted than Biden on handling the U.S. economy.
But the Democratic challenger was way ahead of Trump on coronavirus and race relations.
In Arizona, 46 percent of voters trusted Biden to do a better job of handling the COVID-19 pandemic, while less than four in ten (39 percent) said the same of the president.
The distance between the candidates grew to 16 points on trust to handle race relations, with 50 percent saying Biden would do a better job as 34 percent put more trust in Trump amid ongoing protests against police brutality.
Majorities of voters in both Arizona and Wisconsin disapproved of the president's overall performance in office. But in Ohio, a plurality of 50 percent backed Trump's record in the White House thus far.
Fox News pollsters surveyed a little over 800 voters in Ohio and Wisconsin between May 30 and June 2. The margin of error for the two polls stands at 3.5 percentage points.
A little more than 1,000 voters in Arizona were polled by Fox News over the same period. The state survey's margin of error is 3 percentage points.
