Trump trailing Biden in 6 key battleground states: polls

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Joe Biden opens up 12 point lead over President Trump in new Fox News poll

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New polls released Thursday in six crucial general election battleground states that will help decide the winner of the presidential election indicate that as of right now, Democratic challenger Joe Biden is topping President Trump in each of them.

The surveys – conducted by Siena College for the New York Times – show the former vice president and presumptive Democratic nominee leading the GOP incumbent in the White House 47-36 percent among registered voters in Michigan, 50-40 percent in Pennsylvania, and 49-38 percent in Wisconsin.

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Democrats carried all three so-called "Rust Belt" states in presidential elections dating back a quarter-century until Trump narrowly flipped them from blue to red in 2016, helping him upset Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to win the White House.

The polls also show Biden with a 47-41 percent advantage over the president in Florida, the largest of the battleground states. And they indicate the former vice president topping Trump 48-41 percent in Arizona and 49-40 percent in North Carolina, two other states considered in play this election cycle. Then-GOP presidential nominee Trump won Florida by 1 percentage point and carried Arizona and North Carolina each by 4 points in his 2016 Electoral College rout of Clinton, who edged out Trump to take the national popular vote.

Asked about the new surveys, Trump re-election campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh told reporters that "we put no stock in public polls of any kind."

Murtuaugh argued that the surveys included "an undersampling of Republicans."

The release of the new polls comes four-and-a-half months before the November general election, which is an eternity in campaign politics.

But most of the polls released on Thursday are pretty much in line with results from other recent surveys in the six key battleground states. An average of the latest polls in these states compiled by RealClearPolitcs shows Biden with an 8.6 point margin in Michigan, 8 points in Wisconsin, 6.3 points in Pennsylvania, 6.2 points in Florida, 4 points in Arizona and 1.4 points in North Carolina.

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The new surveys suggest that the president’s once significant lead among white voters – which was crucial to his 2016 election victory – has diminished. And the polls indicate that only 42 percent of voters in the six swing states approve of how Trump’s handling his duties in the White House, with 54 percent disapproving.

The New York Times/Siena College poll was conducted June 8-18, with 3,870 registered voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, Arizona, Wisconsin and North Carolina questioned by live telephone operators. The margin of errors in the states ranged from plus or minus 4.1 to 4.6 percentage points.