Biden leads Trump across six battleground states: poll

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden leads President Trump in six key battleground states, according to a new CNBC-Change Research poll released on Wednesday.

Across Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the former vice president nets a 4-point advantage over Trump. Nationally, Biden’s lead grows to 9 points, up 3 points since a CNBC-Change Research poll released earlier this month. 

The latest poll shows Biden expanding his lead across three battleground states: Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin. In Arizona, the former vice president leads Trump 49-43 percent. In Michigan and Wisconsin, his advantage is even more significant; he leads Trump in those states 51-43 percent and 51-42 percent, respectively. 

In Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, Biden’s lead held steady. He still has a 3-point advantage over Trump in Florida, a 2-point advantage in North Carolina and a 4-point lead in Pennsylvania. 

The poll began on Friday evening after news of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death and ran through Sept. 20, putting it among the first surveys to capture voter attitudes about the current fight to fill Ginsburg’s seat.

The poll shows that a majority of likely voters nationally — 57 percent — do not believe that Trump should be able to nominate a replacement for Ginsburg. A little more than a third of respondents — 37 percent — say that he should fill the open seat. 

Trump has said that he plans to name his pick to replace Ginsburg on the court as soon as Friday, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said that the Senate will move quickly to confirm the eventual nominee. 

But that plan has infuriated Democrats, who say that Republicans should stick to the precedent they set in 2016 when they refused to hold a confirmation hearing for then-President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. McConnell argued at the time that the Senate should not confirm a Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year.

Nationally, Biden and the Democrats are more trusted to choose Ginsburg’s replacement on the court, 54-46 percent. Battleground state voters are almost evenly split on that question, with 51 percent saying they prefer Biden to name a replacement and 49 percent preferring Trump.

The CNBC-Change Research poll surveyed 3,018 likely voters across Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin from Sept. 18 to 20. A companion poll of likely voters nationally surveyed 1,430 likely voters. The margin of sampling error is 1.79 percentage points for the battleground state polling and 2.59 percentage points for the national polling.