President Joe Biden's standing with voters in some key battleground states improved over the past month, with a new poll showing he sharply reduced Donald Trump's lead in some of them and even overtook him in another.
The monthly study, conducted by Bloomberg and Morning Consult, breaks with a five-month-long trend in which the presumptive Republican candidate had made sustained gains.
The poll highlights Biden's strong State of the Union address as one potential explanation for the shift, saying that it "rallied Democrats and seemed to mitigate concerns about Biden's age."
It's still early to tell whether this was a one-off event or the start of a new trend and Trump still leads in four of the seven swing states, but it shows Democrats in their strongest stand yet in the monthly poll.
Concretely, Biden reduced Trump's lead in all states from five to four percentage points. The movements were much sharper in some of them, one being Latino-heavy Nevada. There, the President went from trailing his opponents by six percentage points to two, well within its margin of error.
Pennsylvania and Michigan were other states where Biden made significant gains. They now show him tied with Trump after being down six and two percentage points, respectively.
Biden is now ahead in Wisconsin after losing by four percentage points last month. Even though he does so by one percentage point, within the state's margin of error (four points), it illustrates the sharp uptick.
The scenario is less rosy in the other swing states surveyed: Biden reduced Trump's lead in Arizona and North Carolina, but he's still far behind his opponent, trailing by five and six percentage points, respectively. And Trump's lead increased in Latino-heavy Georgia, going from six to seven percentage points.
Asides from the State of the Union address, the poll captured another data point that, if sustained, could provide a boost for the President. "Consumers feel better about the national economy, with a gradual increase in the number of swing-state voters who say it is on the right track," reads a passage of the survey's results.
Different polls over the past months have shown that most U.S. residents believe the economy is a key issue heading into the elections. A AP-NORC poll from January showed that over 75% of U.S. adults across racial backgrounds listed issues related to the economy when asked about five topics they would want the government to focus on in 2024.
The poll results coincide with another, larger one focused on the Latino community and released in late November. Conducted by UnidosUS, it found that inflation, the labor market and the economy are currently the biggest concerns for this demographic.
Over half of the respondents stated that elected officials need to address the rising cost of living. They also mentioned being worried about being laid off and about unsafe working conditions.
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