Joe Biden's Polling Turnaround Has One Major Problem

President Joe Biden's hopes at winning another term in the White House may be hampered by Donald Trump's polling success in swing states, a poll has indicated.

In March, the incumbent and former president won enough primary races to secure, respectively, the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations in the upcoming election. Since then, a number of polls have indicated that Biden would win. In one recent poll, the Democrat had a 9-point lead over Trump among actual voters, and he saw success in a poll conducted with Republican pollsters.

Still, most polls indicate that the candidates are neck and neck, and some polls put Trump ahead. An April poll by Bloomberg News and Morning Consult has found a major problem for the president: Trump is polling ahead in six key swing states, by 6 points overall.

As these swing states may determine the result of the election, these polls are arguably more important than national polls—though experts have cautioned against certitude about the election's outcome, as polling day is still more than six months away.

Newsweek has contacted representatives for Trump and Biden for comment by email.

The poll surveyed 4,969 registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin between April 8 and 15. The margin of error is plus or minus 1 percentage point across the seven battleground states.

In 2016, Trump flipped Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, but Biden flipped them back in 2020. Biden also narrowly flipped Georgia and Arizona, which had been previously gone to Republicans.

Biden also won Nevada in 2020 by a small margin, while Trump narrowly won North Carolina.

The poll found that Trump is leading Biden in Arizona (49 percent to 42 percent), Georgia (49 percent to 43 percent), Nevada (51 percent to 43 percent), North Carolina (51 percent to 41 percent), Pennsylvania (47 percent to 46 percent) and Wisconsin (48 percent to 44 percent).

In Michigan, Biden has a slight lead of 47 percent to Trump's 45 percent of the vote share.

The poll also found that Biden's 6-point deficit in the states is larger than that of Democratic congressional candidates, who are behind Republican candidates in the state by 2 points.

Christopher Phelps, a professor of modern American history at the University of Nottingham in the U.K., said the poll was "an almost exact match for a Wall Street Journal poll."

He added: "Though one gives Biden Michigan, the other Wisconsin, both show him losing six of the seven essential states. So Biden is struggling in the states that matter most.

"It is almost impossible to conceive a Biden victory without Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania in particular, states that used to be reliably Democratic.

"Inflation and immigration are Biden's Achilles' heel. The Fed's high interest rates may moderate inflation by the time of the election, but the massive Ukraine aid package just passed—even though Biden sought it—will be spent mostly with American arms manufacturers, a form of stimulus that may make inflation stay higher than normal.

"Immigration is something Biden has striven, but apparently without much success yet, to offset with abortion rights and the preservation of rule of law and democratic institutions, policy questions that are more favorable to him. We may see him take tougher immigration measures soon, but Republicans are paradoxically blocking those in Congress, knowing it would undercut their electoral prospects.

"Trump's multiple legal trials, of course, may at some point impact voters' sentiments about him. But Biden has to be called the underdog, with a very tough fight ahead."