With six days until Election Day, President Donald Trump has inched ahead of Joe Biden in Florida polling, according to a RealClearPolitics moving average of surveys focused on the crucial swing state.
Trump is due to fly into the Sunshine State on Wednesday night and campaign there Thursday after speaking this afternoon at two rallies in Arizona, another battleground state. One of those rallies — taking place in Bullhead City, Ariz., near the Arizona-Nevada state line — is also aimed at voters in Nevada.
Meanwhile, Biden on Wednesday attacked Trump’s handling of the coronavirus crisis and other health-care matters, as he delivered a speech that was live-streamed from Delaware. And his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris of California, was countering Trump’s events in Arizona with her own visit to the state.
| Data point | |
| Polling avg. in top swing states | Biden +3.8 as of Wednesday vs. Biden +4.1 a week ago |
| National polling avg. | Biden +7.1 as of Wednesday vs. Biden +7.5 a week ago |
| Betting markets | Biden 64.3%, Trump 34.7% as of Wednesday vs. Biden 63.4%, Trump 37.1% a week ago |
| S&P 500 | -2.9% Wednesday, -1.8% in 1 month |
| CBOE Volatility Index | +18.5% Wednesday, +50.9% in 1 month |
Sources: RealClearPolitics, FactSet
Biden continues to lead Trump in RCP’s polling average focused on top swing states that are likely to decide the Nov. 3 election. He is up by 3.8 percentage points as of Wednesday, down from 4.1 points a week ago, and betting markets give him a 64.3% chance of winning the White House race vs. Trump’s 34.7%.
But RCP was giving the president a 0.4-point advantage in Florida as of late Tuesday, the first time that Trump’s had an edge in the state since April, after new Susquehanna and Rasmussen surveys favored him.
Read:Early voting totals surpass 70 million, more than half of all votes from 2016 election
Separately, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report on Wednesday changed its rating for Texas in the presidential election to “Toss Up” from “Lean R.” The newsletter’s analysts said Trump’s path to winning 270 electoral votes has narrowed.
In addition, the Trump campaign was drawing flak in the wake of a rally on Tuesday night in Nebraska. Hundreds of people who attended the event in Omaha spent up to three hours in freezing temperatures waiting for buses to take them back to their cars, according to an Omaha World-Herald report.
See:Trump’s Omaha rally compared to Fyre Festival after hundreds left stranded
Biden in his speech on Wednesday linked the stranded rally attendees to how Trump has handled the coronavirus crisis.
“It’s an image that captures President Trump’s whole approach to this crisis,” the former vice president said. “He gets his photo op and then gets out. He leaves everyone else to suffer the consequences of his failure to make a responsible plan.”
The Democratic challenger also attacked the White House for putting out a news release on Tuesday that listed ending the pandemic as one of Trump’s top accomplishments, describing the move as an “insult to every single person suffering from COVID-19” and a refusal to recognize reality.
“I’m not running on the false promise of being able to end this pandemic by flipping a switch,” Biden said. “But what I can promise you is this: We will start on Day 1 doing the right things. We’ll let science drive our decisions, we’ll deal honestly with the American people, and we’ll never, ever, ever quit.”
U.S. stocks DJIA, -2.99% SPX, -2.88% COMP, -2.92% were down sharply again Wednesday while the CBOE Volatility Index VIX, +17.99% climbed, as a continued rise in COVID-19 cases in the U.S. and Europe heightened investors’ worries about the economic recovery from the coronavirus recession.
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