Former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Trump by single digits in North Carolina and Georgia, according to a new poll.
A CBS News-YouGov survey of likely voters in North Carolina found Biden leading the president by 4 percentage points, 48 to 44, just outside the poll’s margin of error.
The former vice president also leads Trump by 1 percentage point in a survey of likely voters in Georgia, 46-45.
No Democrat has won Georgia in a presidential race since former President Clinton in 1992. Former President Obama won North Carolina narrowly in 2008, and the state is seen as a key battleground in 2020.
Bolstering Biden’s support in both states is a perception among voters that he would better handle the coronavirus pandemic. In North Carolina, he leads Trump by 12 points when it comes to which candidate voters would trust to manage efforts to stop the virus. In Georgia, he leads Trump by 5 points in the same category.
Trump continues to hold an advantage over Biden when it comes to voters’ perception of who would better manage the economy; however, his advantage is less pronounced. He leads by just 1 point in North Carolina when voters were asked who would do a better job of running the economy and by 6 points in Georgia.
White voters remain a source of strength for Trump in the polls, but Biden could be cutting into those numbers. In North Carolina, Biden is supported by 53 percent of white, college-educated voters, while he is supported by just 39 percent of such voters in Georgia.
The CBS News-YouGov poll surveyed 1,131 likely voters in Georgia with a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points; the North Carolina sample included 1,152 respondents with a margin of error of 3.8 percentage points.