What the last pre-election polls reveal about where things stand

A flood of heavily Democratic ballots has already streamed into election offices around the country during the weeks of early voting. But the presidency could turn on in-person voting Tuesday in several crucial states, with Republicans expected to outnumber Democrats going to the polls on Election Day.

Most surveys of battleground states show that President Donald Trump is trailing Joe Biden by narrow margins and has some ground to make up. If he beats Biden, pollsters at both the state and national levels will have missed even more dramatically than in 2016.

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In some states, there are signs that the race has tightened, and in Iowa, an election-eve poll found Trump with a considerable lead. While polling in many battlegrounds is relatively close, Biden seems to be entering Election Day from a position of strength.

Here’s a look at the last major preelection polls released in five swing states, with an eye toward what they say about the way the broader winds are blowing.

Pennsylvania

If the election comes down to one state, it will most likely be Pennsylvania, which Trump narrowly won four years ago.

This time, polls suggest that the state may be in the Biden column, more so than most of his big targets in the Sun Belt. Several pollsters canvassing likely voters in Pennsylvania over the past week found Biden ahead by 5 to 7 percentage points: Morning Call/Muhlenberg College, NBC News/Marist College, Monmouth University, ABC News/The Washington Post and The New York Times/Siena College.

The Pennsylvania polls are less favorable to Biden than the ones in Wisconsin and Michigan, the other two northern states that flipped Trump’s way in 2016.

Were Biden to win Pennsylvania and hold onto the Upper Midwest, he could probably afford to lose other key states — Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas — and still capture the presidency. (Although possible, a Trump sweep of those states appears unlikely.)

If either candidate has momentum, it may be the president. Biden’s lead in polling averages has steadily narrowed since mid-October. But the Democratic nominee’s political vitals look fairly good. According to the Times/Siena poll, his lead among state’s nonwhite voters is more than 50 percentage points, and he holds a considerable advantage among independents and a 22-point lead with white voters holding college degrees.

Florida

If Biden wins Florida, he may do so while proving that a Democrat can win the state without the resounding support of its large Hispanic population. The latest Times/Siena poll found him winning 55% of Latino voters and in a dead heat with Trump among Hispanic men. An NBC/Marist poll of Florida last week showed Biden falling below 50% among Hispanic voters.

But Biden has made up for his weakness among Latino voters with strong support from suburbanites, white women with college degrees and, in some parts of the state, older voters. In the Times/Siena poll, Biden was up by 3 points among all likely voters in the state, including a 10-point lead among political independents. (Marist gave him a 4-point advantage among all likely voters.)

Trump’s fate will most likely depend on strong support from conservative senior enclaves like Sumter County, a boost from the conservative-leaning Cuban American population and high turnout among his base of white working-class voters, particularly in smaller towns and rural areas.

Arizona

This year is looking as if it could be the moment when Arizona flips to the Democrats for the first time this millennium. Trump’s rise has helped to speed up the phenomenon; two years ago, the backlash to his first term swept Kyrsten Sinema, the state’s Democratic senator, into office.

This year, polling suggests that Mark Kelly, an astronaut and Democratic Senate candidate, is on the verge of joining Sinema in Washington and ousting Sen. Martha McSally.

Biden had consistently led in polls of the state for much of the race, and the final Times/Siena poll showed him up by 6 points. But other polls have shown Arizona drifting back in Trump’s direction; an NBC/Marist poll out Monday showed a tied race.

Georgia

Georgia is another state that could be on the verge of flipping from Republican to Democrat, and it has even bigger implications for the Senate. There are two seats open in the chamber, and in both cases the Democrat in the race is polling strongly. Both Senate races, however, could head to runoff elections in January.

While Biden is leaning heavily on the support of the state’s large Black population, he has also eroded Trump’s backing among white voters, particularly those with college degrees. If he can break the 30% threshold among white voters, his chances of winning Georgia will improve.

A Monmouth poll last week found Biden meeting that target, pulling 31% of the state’s white voters, while holding a 4-point advantage over Trump overall.

Iowa

If there’s any poll that has shown tangible evidence of a late break toward Trump, it’s the Des Moines Register/Selzer & Co. poll of Iowa, which is widely considered to be a gold standard. A Selzer survey released over the weekend found Trump opening up a 7-point lead among likely voters, after being tied with Biden in September.

The poll showed the president winning back the support of independents — a rarity for him in swing states this year — and cutting Biden’s lead among women in the heavily white state down to the single digits. The poll found that, even as coronavirus cases have spiked in the state recently, most Iowans do not consider the pandemic their No. 1 issue. The Selzer poll also found that Joni Ernst, the state’s Republican senator, was up 4 points on her Democratic challenger, Theresa Greenfield.

If Trump is going to win enough states to retain the presidency, he will need a lot more situations like this.