Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden has opened a wide lead over President Donald Trump, 55% to 40% among registered voters. But it gets worse for Trump as Biden’s advantage in the polls is most evident in the suburbs, where he is earning a historic amount of support for a Democrat, according to several polls.
Biden is up by a 56% to 34% margin among suburban voters, a key demographic for both Democrats and Republicans, the latest Quinnipiac University poll found.
The poll comes on top of other surveys last week from Fox News, NBC News/Wall Street Journal and ABC News/Washington Post showing show in as good or even better position among suburban voters.
The NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll has Biden beating Trump 60% to 35% among suburban voters. Biden is up by a 52% to 43% margin among suburban voters in the ABC News/Washington Post poll. The latest Fox News poll has Biden with 49% to 38% lead. A CNN poll had Biden with a 14-point lead in the suburbs.
Don't Miss
In the average of all the polls, Biden’s ahead by more than 15 points with suburban voters. This is a historic margin, if it holds.
The fact that Biden is doing so well in the suburbs shouldn’t be a surprise. The suburbs are a bellwether vote of sorts in our current political environment. That is, the suburban vote mirrors the national vote closer than the urban or rural vote.
Biden’s lead in the suburbs is reflective of him doing significantly better than Hillary Clinton. Four years ago at this time, Trump was beating Clinton by a 45% to 35% margin in the ABC/Washington Post poll among suburban voters.
In other words, we’re looking at nearly a 20-point improvement for Biden versus where Clinton was at this point in the 2016 campaign.
Winning Democratic candidates do tend to carry the suburbs, though none by as much as any of the polls currently have Biden ahead in them. Back in 2008 (the best year for Democrats this century), Obama won in the suburbs by 2 points in the exit polls.
Unless Trump turns it around in the suburbs, he could be heading towards being a one-term president.
