Former Vice President and 2020 Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s lead over President Donald Trump in national polling has been cut in half, according to a new poll.
If new elections were held today, a poll conducted by Emerson found, Biden would win the popular vote by a two-point margin, 49% to 47%.
The poll, which was conducted on Sunday and Monday, surveyed 1,567 likely voters via telephone and the internet.
A month ago, Biden held a four-point lead over Trump according to Emerson, with 50% of the vote to 46% for Trump.
“The Republican convention gave Trump his most positive week of news coverage which likely attributes to his bounce in this month’s poll and increasing job approval,” said Spencer Kimball, Director of Emerson College Polling.
Biden holds an eight-point lead with independents, 50% to 42%, while Trump is performing better with his base than Biden is among Democrats, with the president getting 83% of Republicans and 18% of Democrats, compared to 79% of Democrats and 14% of Republicans who say they’ll vote for Biden.
Ninety-one percent of voters who backed Trump in 2016 will vote for him again, compared to 7% who will vote for Biden. By comparison, 9% of Clinton voters will now vote for Trump, compared to 88% who will vote for Biden.
Broken down by ethnicity, 56% of non-Hispanic whites say they’ll vote for Trump, compared to 41% who plan to vote for Biden, with Biden leading Trump among Asians 76% to 11% - significantly better than Clinton’s 65% to 27% margin with Asians in 2016.
Among blacks and Hispanics, however, Trump is on track to outperform his 2016 showing, with the new poll projecting he will receive 19% of the black vote – the most for a Republican presidential candidate since 1960 – compared to 77% for Biden, and 37% of the Hispanic vote to Biden’s 60%.
In 2016, Clinton won the black vote by a margin of 89% to 9%, and the Hispanic vote by a margin of 66% to 28%.
The Emerson poll also gave Trump his best approval rating in months, with 49% of respondents approving of his job performance, compared to 47% who disapprove.
The betting odds have also moved sharply in Trump’s favor in recent weeks, amid tightening polls both nationally and in battleground states.
The RealClearPolitics average of betting odds now shows Trump nearly tied with Biden, at 48.4% to 52.1%.
Other recent polls, including the new Morning Consult survey, also show Trump gaining on Biden.
Saturday’s poll shows Trump trailing Biden by six points, 44% to 50%, compared to a 10-point deficit on August 23rd, when Biden led 52% to 42%.
A YouGov poll released by Yahoo! News after the Republican National Convention found Trump trailing Biden by six points, 41% to 47%, compared to a nine-point deficit at the end of July, when he trailed Biden 40% to 49%.
In the battleground state of Michigan, a new poll released Friday by the Trafalgar Group showed Trump taking a narrow lead over Biden, 46.6% to 45.2%, after trailing Biden by 0.9% in June, 45.3% to 46.2%.