CLEVELAND — With just about two months until the 2020 presidential election, the race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden remains tight in Ohio.
According to polling released by Morning Consult on Tuesday, President Trump leads former Vice President Biden in the Buckeye State by five points, 50% to 45%. The president's margin increased a bit coming on the heels of last week's Republican National Convention.
Nationally, Biden leads Trump by eight points, 51%-43%. That includes a 12-point lead among women (53 percent to 41 percent), an 11-point lead among independent voters (48 percent to 37 percent) and an 11-point lead among voters in the suburbs (52 percent to 41 percent). Biden's lead is greater than that of Hillary Clinton in 2016 at this point, when she had a three point edge over Trump following the conventions.
Morning Consult looked at 11 key battleground states in their recent poll and found that Biden was ahead in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. President Trump is ahead in Ohio and Texas.
The polling data also shows that compared to 2016, voters are much less less likely to be undecided (6% now vs. 17% then) heading out of the conventions, with just 2 percent of voters saying they’d choose “someone else” over either Biden or Trump.
A slim majority of voters in the latest survey (51%) have positive views of Biden, up 3 points since before the two conventions, with 46% viewing him unfavorably, down 2 points during the same time. Voter sentiment about Trump is statistically unchanged: A majority (55%) have negative views, while 43% have positive views.
Trump and Biden will have the first of three scheduled presidential debates in Cleveland later this month. The two will square off at the Health Education Campus (HEC) of Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic on Tuesday, Sept. 29, inside the Sheila and Eric Samson Pavilion.
The debate will be 90 minutes long, airing from 9 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. The event will consist of six 15 minute segments.