Trump Surges Past Biden In PA In New Polls

PENNSYLVANIA — Support for President Joe Biden has evaporated in several key battleground states in recent weeks, including Pennsylvania, according to new polling. Voters are increasingly sounding calls for more systemic reforms to the nation's economic and political systems than the Democratic establishment has been willing to undertake, the surveys found.

The polls from the New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Siena College saw former President Donald Trump surging ahead of Biden in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada, the purple states that will most likely determine who sits in the White House next year if the 2024 election is remotely close.

The polls give Trump a three point lead over Biden in Pennsylvania, 47 percent to 44 percent. Biden narrowly won the Keystone State in 2020 and Trump narrowly won it in 2016, with each going on to win the presidency in that election.

That polling does not account for strong national support for third party candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West, and Jill Stein, who will all likely take more votes from Trump than they will Biden.

And these new polls are hardly isolated. According to an average of all the most recent polls collated by RealClearPolitics, Trump leads Biden by an average of two points in Pennsylvania, 47.6 percent to 45.6 percent.

That's Trump's largest leading margin over Biden in the entire race, but there's more to the numbers: as recently as March 11, it was Biden who held a 0.8 point lead. So Trump's surge in Pennsylvania, even accounting for the average of all polls, still amounts to three percent.

Further reason for pessimism for Democrats is that the polls come amid Trump's ongoing criminal trial in Manhattan and in the wake of huge spending campaigns by Biden in the spring. None of it has been enough to overcome the key issues pulling down Biden in the new polls, including the high cost of living, immigration issues, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and a general sense that America needs to drastically overhaul its foundation.

"Nearly 70 percent of voters say that the country’s political and economic systems need major changes — or even to be torn down entirely," the New York Times writes in their summary of the polling's findings.

Support particularly is waning for Biden among Black, Hispanic, and young voters under 29, traditional demographics that comprise bedrock supporters of the Democratic Party. All groups reiterated calls for "fundamental changes to American society, not just a return to normalcy," the polls noted, and "few believed that Mr. Biden would make even minor changes that would be good for the country."