By Manzanita Miller
In a recently released New York Times / Siena College poll, former President Trump leads President Biden by six percentage points and has made sizeable gains with Black voters, women, and suburbanites weeks after his conviction.
The nationwide poll, released Wednesday, shows Trump beating Biden 48 percent to 42 percent, a sizeable lead for Trump compared to previous Times/ Siena polls taken before his conviction. The last nationwide Times poll was released in April, and that poll had Trump leading Biden by one point, 46 percent to 45 percent.
In May, the Times released its battleground state poll, which had Trump ahead of Biden by six percentage points in swing states. Trump tends to lead by a wider margin in swing states than he does in nationwide polls, but the latest Times nationwide poll has Trump ahead by a six-point margin.
On top of that, Trump has made sizeable gains since the previous polls with specific groups, including Blacks Americans, non-college educated minorities, women, and suburbanites. The Times poll shows no change for Trump among independents but a five-point loss for Biden, upending a recent Fox News poll which showed Trump losing with independents after the conviction.
The Times poll shows Trump with a substantial gain among Black voters, who have rallied around him in the weeks following the conviction. Trump is earning 30 percent of the Black vote in the latest Times poll, after earning 16 percent in the April nationwide poll and 23 percent in the May battleground state poll. All three figures are a vast shift compared to 2020, when Trump won thirteen percent of the Black vote.
Trump has lost no ground with Hispanics and made a three-point gain with them since the last nationwide Times poll. He went from 41 percent with Hispanics in the last nationwide poll to 44 percent today. For comparison, Trump earned 32 percent of the Latino vote in 2020, indicating he could gain as many as twelve percentage points with Hispanics compared to last election.
Trump’s largest gain has been among Black voters, but he has also gained substantially among non-college minorities. Trump has gained 11 points among non-white voters without a college degree since the last nationwide poll, going from 30 percent of their vote to 41 percent. He has also gained six points with suburbanites, six points with women, and 5 points with college-educated whites.
Independents, a point of contention in recent polling analysis, have shown nearly no movement in the Times poll since April. Trump was earning 47 percent of their vote in April to Biden’s 42 percent, and in the current poll Trump is earning 47 percent of their vote, but Biden’s share has decreased to 37 percent. This is a sizeable decline for Biden compared to earlier polling, but it is especially sizeable compared to 2020 exit polls. Biden won independents by thirteen points in 2020, and according to recent polls he is on track to lose them by ten pints or more.
Have there been any losses for Trump? Trump did lose five points among voters under age thirty according to the Times poll, going from 45 percent of their vote in April to 40 percent today. This still represents a vast decline in support for Biden among young people. The latest Times poll shows Biden earning 46 percent of voters under 30, while he won 60 percent of their vote in 2020. Conviction aside, Biden is down fourteen points with young people compared to four years ago while Trump has gained modesty.
The Times poll also shows Trump has suffered small losses among non-white college-educated votors (minus four points), Democrats (minus three points) and city dwellers (minus two points).
Trump is holding up substantially among swing voters and has made strong inroads with minorities over the past two months. How voters feel after Thursday’s presidential debate will need to be analyzed in subsequent polls, but we now have a snapshot of post-conviction Trump support.
Manzanita Miller is the senior political analyst for Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
