There are fewer than three months left until Americans head to the polls to vote for president. And the race in Wisconsin between Republican Donald Trump and Democratic hopeful Joe Biden is tight.
According to the latest Marquette Law School Poll, former Vice President Biden leads President Trump by about 5 percentage points among registered voters. However, Charles Franklin, the man behind the poll, says Biden shouldn’t feel too comfortable about the lead he has here.
“Certainly, anybody that takes this race for granted is asking to have an unpleasant surprise. A five-point margin right now is a margin, but our margin of error is 4.2. So a five-point margin is not something to take for granted, at all,” Franklin says.
Franklin says the real question for Biden is how stable his lead is. It’s down from an 8-point advantage in the last Marquette Law School Poll, which was released in late June.
When it comes to the Trump campaign, Franklin says it might be concerned over the fact that Trump’s job approval numbers are slightly down.
The Marquette Law School Poll also compared this year’s presidential race to 2016, when then-candidate Trump faced off against Hillary Clinton.
Franklin says the month of August brought both national conventions and swings in polling. He says the race tightened after the Republican National Convention at the end of August. This year, the party’s largely virtual conventions will be running back-to-back, starting with the DNC next week.
“With these odd pseudo conventions that we’re having this year, it’s hard to know whether we get the usual post-convention bounce for either party,” Franklin says.
In the latest poll, both Democrats and Republicans say they’re enthused about the race. Franklin says 87% of Democrats and 87% of Republicans say they plan to vote come November.
Franklin says to keep watch on the independents at we creep closer to Nov. 3 because the closer the race the more engaged they become.
