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With six days until Election Day, President Donald Trump has inched ahead of Joe Biden in Florida polling, according to a RealClearPolitics moving average of surveys focused on the crucial swing state.
Trump is due to fly into the Sunshine State on Wednesday night and campaign there Thursday after speaking this afternoon at two rallies in Arizona, another battleground state. One of those rallies — taking place in Bullhead City, Ariz., near the Arizona-Nevada state line — is also aimed at voters in Nevada.
Meanwhile, Biden’s campaign said the Democratic presidential nominee on Wednesday is slated to give a speech live-streamed from Delaware on “his plans to beat COVID-19, lower health-care costs and protect Americans with pre-existing conditions.” And his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris of California, was due to counter Trump’s events in Arizona with her own visit to the state.
| Data point | |
| Polling avg. in top swing states | Biden +3.8 as of Wednesday vs. Biden +4.1 a week ago |
| National polling avg. | Biden +7.2 as of Wednesday vs. Biden +7.5 a week ago |
| Betting markets | Biden 64.3%, Trump 34.7% as of Wednesday vs. Biden 63.4%, Trump 37.1% a week ago |
| S&P 500 | -2.8% Wednesday, -1.7% in 1 month |
| CBOE Volatility Index | +19.5% Wednesday, +52.2% in 1 month |
Sources: RealClearPolitics, FactSet
Biden continues to lead Trump in RCP’s polling average focused on top swing states that are likely to decide the Nov. 3 election. He is up by 3.8 percentage points as of Wednesday, down from 4.1 points a week ago, and betting markets give him a 64.3% chance of winning the White House race vs. Trump’s 34.7%.
But RCP was giving the president a 0.4-point advantage in Florida as of late Tuesday, the first time that Trump’s had an edge in the state since April, after new Susquehanna and Rasmussen surveys favored him.
Separately, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report on Wednesday changed its rating for Texas in the presidential election to “Toss Up” from “Lean R.” The newsletter’s analysts said Trump’s path to winning 270 electoral votes has narrowed.
In addition, the Trump campaign was drawing flak in the wake of a rally on Tuesday night in Nebraska. Hundreds of people who attended the event in Omaha spent up to three hours in freezing temperatures waiting for buses to take them back to their cars, according to an Omaha World-Herald report.
U.S. stocks DJIA, -2.48% SPX, -2.50% COMP, -2.82% were down sharply again Wednesday while the CBOE Volatility Index VIX, +15.53% climbed, as a continued rise in COVID-19 cases in the U.S. and Europe heightened investors’ worries about the economic recovery from the coronavirus recession.
