US Election Tracker – Biden Maintains His Significant Polling Lead
- By Caroline Grady and Bilal Hafeez
- 1 min read
A new all-time daily record of 62,117 US COVID cases on Wednesday highlights the difficulty in President Trump’s reelection campaign. Any significant bounce back in Q3 GDP data (due for release just 5 days before the election) is contingent upon mobility levels normalizing and America returning to work. With mobility levels currently declining in swing states such as Florida (Chart 1) this could well delay the recovery. Given the economy is the only area where polls show Trump is currently trusted more than the Democrats this will be a huge concern for the Republican campaign…
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Big and steady are the words increasingly used to describe Biden’s lead over Trump. A Wall Street Journal/NBC news poll published yesterday gave Biden an 11-point lead (51% versus 40% for Trump), up from a 7 point lead in last month’s poll and other polls average out at around a 9-point lead for Biden. Voters still trust Trump more on the economy according to this poll but Biden is ahead in all other areas. Trumps remains ahead with white voters and very slightly with men, but for all other groups Biden is far ahead.
Chart 1: Biden Has a Double-Digit Lead in Latest WSJ/NBC Poll
Another recent poll from Quinnipiac University saw Biden ahead on the economy with a 50-45% split in his favour and a whopping 15-point lead for Biden overall. It will be important to see whether this is confirmed in forthcoming polls as a strong economic rebound is the one area where Trump could claw back some lost support. But with the US continuing to record new daily records in COVID cases the risk of more localized lockdowns is rising. Trump’s recent decision to replace his campaign manager suggests he is finally taking Biden’s consistent lead seriously in contrast earlier comments dismissing his sinking ratings.
From the Democrat side, a sense of nervous optimism seems fitting given memories of 2016. Prediction markets show an increasing chance of Democrats taking the Senate making Biden’s policy platform increasingly important. The recent announcement of a $2tn climate investment package spread over four years is more ambitious than his earlier pledge and would reverse US divergence on global climate policy.
Chart 2: Prediction Markets Increasing Expect a Democrat Win in the Senate
Bilal Hafeez is the CEO and Editor of Macro Hive. He spent over twenty years doing research at big banks – JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, and Nomura, where he had various “Global Head” roles and did FX, rates and cross-markets research.
Caroline Grady is a Senior Researcher at Macro Hive. Formerly, she was a Senior EM Economist at Deutsche Bank and a Leader Writer at the Financial Times.
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