Trump still leading Biden in Michigan, new poll says

A poll of Michigan voters released Thursday showed President Joe Biden still trailing former President Donald Trump in the battleground state as each this week became their parties' prospective nominees in the November election.

The Quinnipiac University poll found Trump beating Biden 41%-36% in Michigan in a hypothetical five-way race, with independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. getting 10%, Green Party candidate Jill Stein getting 4% and independent candidate Cornel West getting 3%. Five percent were either undecided or didn't answer.

In a head-to-head matchup between the two presidents, Trump's lead was more narrow as he still led Biden 48%-45% in Michigan, with 8% undecided, refused to answer or saying they would vote for someone else. Quinnipiac called the head-to-head matchup "too close to call."

For the survey, the Connecticut university's polling center, which is a well-regarded independent pollster, contacted 1,487 self-identified registered voters between last Friday and this Tuesday. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

The poll was released as Biden visited voters in Saginaw on Thursday, making his second campaign trip to the state in about six weeks. Both Biden and Trump won their parties' respective primaries in Michigan on Feb. 27.

Most polls have shown Biden narrowly trailing Trump in Michigan in this year's election. EPIC-MRA in Lansing, which does polling for the Free Press, released a poll of Michigan voters last month showing Trump leading Biden in a head-to-head matchup 45%-41%, in a survey that had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Biden defeated Trump in Michigan by just under 3 percentage points, or about 154,000 votes, in 2020. Trump won Michigan by a narrow two-tenths of a percentage point margin in 2016. Of a group of swing states that includes Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Michigan is generally considered the most Democratic-leaning, suggesting that if Biden were to lose there, his reelection is unlikely.

The new survey found self-identified Democrats and Republicans overwhelming supporting their party's candidate, with 94% of Republicans backing Trump and 93% of Democrats backing Biden in the head-to-head matchup. Independents split for Trump 46%-42% with 12% refusing to answer, undecided or saying they would vote for someone else or sit out the election.

The Quinnipiac poll also said among Republican voters in Michigan, 42% considered immigration their top issue, followed by 24% who said it was the economy. Forty-two percent of Democrats said their top issue was preserving democracy in the U.S. Twelve percent said it was gun violence, followed by 10% who said it was the economy. Twenty-six percent of independents said the economy was their top issue, followed by 21% who said it was preserving democracy and 18% who said it was immigration.

As to the economy, Quinnipiac polling analyst Tim Malloy said there were conflicting results.

"A head scratcher, but a fact: Sixty-five percent of Michigan voters seem to think the economy is shaky at best but nearly the same number say their finances are doing just fine," he said.

Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @tsspangler.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Trump still leading Biden in Michigan, new poll says