Biden Leads Trump in Nevada and the Two Are Tied in Ohio, Polls Show – The New York Times

Joseph R. Biden Jr. maintains a steady lead over President Trump in Nevada and the two are virtually tied in Ohio, as voters continue to express dissatisfaction with the president’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, according to new polls by The New York Times and Siena College released on Wednesday.

Mr. Biden leads 48 percent to 42 percent among likely voters in Nevada and 45 to 44 percent in Ohio, the polls found. Six percent of Nevada voters and 7 percent of Ohioans said they remain undecided. The polls were taken after Mr. Trump announced he had tested positive for the coronavirus, and most of the survey took place before Mr. Trump returned to the White House on Monday night from the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

As the two campaigns spar this week over safety precautions for next week’s debate, voters in both states, including about 20 percent of Mr. Trump’s supporters, said by wide margins the president did not take adequate precautions to protect himself from the virus.

The results illustrate the shifting political dynamics in a pair of states each party has been hoping to flip from its 2016 results. When The Times polled Nevada last month, Mr. Biden held a four-point lead. And Ohio, a state critical to Mr. Trump’s Electoral College prospects, appears to be a tossup after Republicans and many Democrats had assumed the state’s demographics made it virtually certain to remain in Mr. Trump’s column. The president carried Ohio by eight percentage points in 2016.

The margin of error for both polls is 4.3 percentage points.

The results show the extent to which voters’ views on the coronavirus crisis and Mr. Trump’s management of it continue to hang over the election.

Voters in Nevada said, by a 10-point margin, that they trusted Mr. Biden more than the president to handle the pandemic. In Ohio, Mr. Biden’s advantage on the question was seven points.

About one-third of voters in each state said Mr. Trump did take adequate precautions to protect himself, while 62 percent in Nevada and 58 percent in Ohio said he did not.

And asked how politicians should campaign during the pandemic, just 20 percent of Ohio voters and 28 percent of Nevadans said it is appropriate to appear in person before large crowds. Sixty-five percent of Ohioans and 58 percent of Nevada voters said candidates should campaign only in front of small, socially-distanced groups.

Even sizable chunks of Mr. Trump’s own supporters — 37 percent in Ohio and 22 percent in Nevada — found his large rallies to be inappropriate in the coronavirus era.

“I really wish he had been more of a role model in showing us how to be safe,” said Karen Pellerin, a 57-year-old retiree from Sparks, Nev. “I’m pretty disgusted that he gets out the hospital and walks around the White House with the virus.”

Still, Ms. Pellerin said she planned to vote for Mr. Trump. She said she had “no confidence” in Mr. Biden and his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris of California.

Mr. Biden’s strength in the two states, as it is elsewhere, is powered by women; he led Mr. Trump by 11 percentage points among women in Ohio and 14 points in Nevada. He also has retained a significant advantage among suburban voters, leading by 32 percentage points in Nevada and 22 points in Ohio.

Mr. Biden’s six-point lead among likely voters in Nevada comes after Democrats have fretted for months about the state’s large population of unionized casino workers being put out of work because of the pandemic. The Culinary Union, which represents casino workers in Las Vegas and Reno, had 90 percent of its members unemployed in March, vastly increasing the difficultly in organizing workers who had not already left the state.