A new poll shows Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden leading Republican President Donald Trump among suburban voters by 46 percent to 39 percent, a margin of 7 points.
The finding is significant as suburban voters are traditionally considered as more conservative. In 2016, Trump won the country’s overall suburban vote by five percentage points. The demographic was crucial to his victories in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
This new poll also contradicts Trump’s own claim of support amongst suburban woman, as have two other recent polls.
The poll in question—conducted from September 19 to 21 by the Washington, D.C. newspaper The Hill and the market research company HarrisX—asked 2,803 registered voters who they’d vote for if the election were held today.
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While 46 percent of suburban voters preferred Biden and 39 percent preferred Trump, urban voters preferred Biden over Trump by 47 to 37 percent. Rural voters, however, preferred Trump over Biden by 50 to 37 percent.
When it came to female voters, women preferred Biden over Trump by 49 to 34 percent, but men preferred Trump over Biden by 47 to 40 percent.
The poll also showed that white people were the only race of voters to prefer Trump to Biden. While 49 percent of white voters chose Trump, only 38 percent chose Biden. Meanwhile, 72 percent of Black voters preferred Biden and 13 percent of Black voters chose Trump. About 49 percent of Latino voters chose Biden, only 27 percent chose Trump.
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“The ‘suburban housewife’ will be voting for me,” Trump tweeted on August 12, 2020. “They want safety & are thrilled that I ended the long running program where low income housing would invade their neighborhood. Biden would reinstall it, in a bigger form, with Corey Booker in charge!”
According to USA Today, the tweet was interpreted as a racist “dog-whistle” warning white voters of a potential influx of people of color living in the suburbs under a Democratic president. In response to the tweet, the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump Republican group of Republicans tweeted: “You sad, racist old man.”
However, several polls show that Trump may have overestimated his appeal to suburban women.
A mid-August poll conducted by NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist showed 66 percent of suburban women disapproving of the job Trump is doing, with 58 percent saying they “strongly disapproved.”
An early September poll by Grinnell College showed 64 percent of suburban women backing Biden and 31 percent backing Trump, a 2-to-1 margin in favor of the Democratic challenger.
Exit polls conducted by CNN during the 2018 midterm elections found that women backed Democratic candidates over Republicans by a margin of nearly 20 percent.
In 2016, 54 percent of women voted for the Democratic presidential candidate, but only 39 percent backed Trump, a difference of 15 points, according to the Pew Research Center.
Newsweek contacted the Trump campaign for comment.
Home>>Finance>>In mid-August, Trump declared that suburban women would be voting for him, but several polls suggest strongly otherwise.
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