In winning the state of Pennsylvania in the 2020 election, President Joe Biden made much of his roots in the state where he was born.
But a new poll shows that all the hometown hoopla in the world might not be enough to sway voters in 2024.
According to an Emerson College poll, Trump is leading Biden by 9 percentage points, 45 percent to 36 percent.
Spencer Kimball, Executive Director of Emerson College Polling, said Trump drew strong support from voters with a high school education or less and voters under 30.
The Emerson poll of 430 Pennsylvania voters was conducted between Oct. 1 and Oct. 4. It has a credibility interval, a similar measure to a margin of error, of plus or minus 4.7 percentage points.
A new Quinnipiac poll showed that Trump has a narrow edge over Biden, 47 percent to 45 percent. Trump’s support level was unchanged from a June poll, but Biden dropped a percentage point.
Trump received a 40 percent favorability rating; Biden’s rating was 39 percent.
The poll of 1,725 Pennsylvania registered voters was conducted between Sept. 28 and Oct. 2. Its margin of error is plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.
“It looks better and better for Donald Trump here, but there’s a lot of game to be played between now and then,” said Jim Schultz, a former White House counsel in the Trump administration, according to CBS.
“I think the polls are showing people are not happy. Democrats, in fact, are not happy with the job that Joe Biden’s doing,” he said.
Schultz said the stakes are high for Biden.
“If they don’t win Pennsylvania, the Democrats don’t win,” he said.
A series of surveys from the Telegraph shows Trump leading in Georgia and Arizona, which he won in 2016 but not 2020, while also winning Florida and North Carolina.
The polls showed Trump leading Biden 44 percent to 39 percent in Arizona; 44 percent to 39 percent in Florida; 43 percent to 40 percent in Georgia and 43 percent to 38 percent in North Carolina.
The Telegraph polls showed Trump and Biden tied in Michigan at 41 percent and Biden ahead in Pennsylvania, 43 percent to 42 percent. The Telegraph did not release margins of error.
When the surveys added in independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s margin widened.
Philip van Scheltinga, the Director of Research at Redfield & Wilton Strategies — which was hired for the surveys — said the results were not good for Biden.
“Democrats need to think hard about whether to stick with Biden as their candidate. Our polling shows that they cannot expect a rerun of 2020 to have the same result,” he said.
“If they run the same strategy as they did in 2020 – counting on voters’ distaste for Trump — they will lose,” he said.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
