Swing-state boost for Trump after assassination attempt
A majority of voters in five key swing states now expect Donald Trump to win the US election, following a shift in the days after the assassination attempt against him.
Polls conducted for The Telegraph on either side of the attack on Saturday show that most Americans in battleground states now consider him a president-in-waiting.
For the first time since the presidential race began, a majority of 53 per cent in a combined poll across Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania think that Trump will win in November.
That proportion, reported in a poll taken between Tuesday and Thursday this week, has increased by almost three points since July 10 – three days before Thomas Crooks shot at Trump from a rooftop near his rally in Pennsylvania.
Trump has received a boost in voting intention in national and swing state polls since the attack, increasing concern among Democrats who believe that Joe Biden’s campaign has already failed.
The data suggests that registered Democrats in swing states agree with many of their party’s congressmen that Mr Biden’s campaign is doomed to fail. More voters believe Trump will win than say they will vote for him.
Since October, The Telegraph has asked voters in the five states the same question about who they expect to win the election. The polls were carried out by Redfield & Wilton Strategies.
The results show that Trump has always been the favourite, but the margin between the two men has increased significantly in the last six weeks.
Following the presidential debate on June 27, where Mr Biden gave a haphazard performance that sparked fresh concerns about his age, the proportion of voters who believed he would lose to Trump increased by five points, to 50 per cent.
In the week between July 10 and July 18, a period that covers the assassination attempt, it increased by a further 2.7 points.
The Telegraph’s poll is the first to assess the impact of the attack on voters’ perception of the presidential campaigns.
Swing states have an outsize impact on the presidential election because candidates must win there to accrue enough electoral college delegates to take the White House.
In total, there are thought to be seven swing states, and the latest poll shows Trump is winning in six of them.
His lead is greatest in North Carolina, which he won in 2020, and Georgia, which Mr Biden won by a wafer-thin margin of 0.02 points. The pair are tied in Wisconsin.
Mr Biden is facing serious questions about his campaign from senior Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi, the former house speaker, and the party’s leaders in the House of Representatives and Senate.
Barack Obama, who served with Mr Biden in the White House for eight years and is considered one of his closest allies, has also expressed concerns about his poll numbers.
The assassination attempt against Trump is thought to have galvanised his base and prevented Mr Biden from using attack lines that could be perceived as aggressive. Some Democrats now think that the US president should “pass the torch” to Kamala Harris, his vice-president.
The shooting has also damaged Mr Biden directly. Following the incident, in which a bullet clipped Trump’s ear, his supporters blamed Mr Biden and pointed to statements in which he has called his rival a “dictator”.
The Telegraph’s poll shows that a majority of voters in all seven swing states think that “rhetoric describing Trump as a threat to democracy” was either significantly responsible or fairly responsible for the attack. Crooks’s motive has not yet been established by the FBI.
Although most voters say they approve of Mr Biden’s response to the attempt on Trump’s life, they also think Trump “demonstrated courage” and believe it will help his election campaign.
A significant majority think that the Secret Service, which has been blamed for failing to secure the area, is responsible for the “near success” of the assassination attempt.