Florida and Texas remain tight battlegrounds in the presidential election, according to CBS News Battleground Tracker polls released Sunday.
The current margin in both states is 2 percentage points, with Democratic nominee Joe Biden up by 2 in Florida and President Donald Trump up by 2 in Texas. Trump won both states in 2016; no Democratic presidential candidate has won Texas since Jimmy Carter in 1976.
In both cases, the leads were within the margins of error for the polls (3.7 points in Florida, 3.5 points in Texas). The polls were conducted by YouGov from Sept. 15-18 of 1,220 registered voters in Florida and 1,161 in Texas.
The Texas poll showed an unexpectedly close Senate race, with Republican Sen. John Cornyn ahead of Democratic challenger Mary “MJ“ Hegar by a mere 5 points, 46 to 41. That seat has not been high on the lists of ones most likely to flip.
Also Sunday, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed Biden ahead of Trump nationally by a margin of 51 percent to 43 percent.
In 12 battleground states — including Florida but not Texas — Biden’s lead was 51 to 45.
Besides Florida, the other swing states were Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
The NBC/WSJ poll had Biden with 90 percent support among Black voters, 57 percent support among women, and 54 support among whites with college degrees. Trump‘s strongest groups were whites without college degrees (59 percent), white voters (52 percent), and men (50 percent).
The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll was conducted Sept. 13-16 of 1,000 registered voters, and the overall margin of error is plus-minus 3.1 percentage points.
Any possible political fallout from the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Sept. 18 did not factor into these polls.
Politico