Poll: Biden leads Trump by 3 points in Florida

Presumptive Democratic nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden holds a narrow lead over President Trump in Florida, according to a new poll released Thursday, the latest sign that Trump’s adoptive home state is still up for grabs in November.

The poll, from the Republican firm Cygnal, shows Biden with 47 percent support among likely voters in the Sunshine State. Trump trails by roughly 3 points at around 44 percent.

The Cygnal poll tracks with a CNBC survey fielded late last month by the Democratic-leaning Change Research, which also showed Biden leading Trump by 3 points in Florida. Before that, a survey from Florida-based St. Pete Polls showed Biden with a 1-point advantage. 

Biden’s 3-point lead in the latest Cygnal poll still falls within its plus or minus 3.3-percentage-point margin of error, but it comes at a time when Trump has seen his support drop in a growing number of polls nationally.

As the nation’s largest swing state, Florida is a perennial electoral target for both parties. But the president’s campaign sees the state as particularly crucial, given Florida’s 29 electoral votes, Trump’s narrow win there in 2016 and his large presence in the state. He owns several properties there and moved there last year to declare himself a Florida resident.

Trump and his team have fumed in recent days over his recent polling deficits, going as far as to send a cease and desist letter to CNN this week demanding that the network retract and apologize for a recent national poll that showed the president trailing Biden by 14 points.

A lawyer for CNN called the Trump campaign’s letter “factually and legally baseless,” and rejected demands to retract the poll.

The Cygnal poll was conducted from May 18-30 and is based on responses from 881 likely Florida voters.