Mr. Trump didn’t just lose support to the undecided column; Mr. Biden ticked up to an average of 37 percent among white voters without a degree. The figure would be enough to assure Mr. Biden the presidency, given his considerable strength among white college graduates. In the most recent polls, white college graduates back Mr. Biden by a 20-point margin, up four points since the spring. It’s also an eight-point improvement for the Democratic nominee since 2016, and a 26-point improvement since 2012.
Mr. Biden has also made some progress toward redressing his weakness among younger voters. Voters ages 18 to 34 now back Mr. Biden by a 22-point margin, up six points from the spring and now somewhat ahead of Hillary Clinton’s lead in the final polls of 2016. Young voters will probably never be a strength for Mr. Biden — a septuagenarian who promised a return to normal, rather than fundamental change during the Democratic primary — but for now his margin is not so small as to constitute a grave threat to his prospects.
Remarkably, Mr. Biden still leads by seven points among voters 65 and over in the most recent surveys, despite the kind of racial unrest that led many of these voters to support Republican candidates at various points in their lifetimes. It should be noted that Mr. Biden’s lead among older voters is somewhat narrower than it was a few months ago, either reflecting the statistical noise of small sample sizes or reflecting the toll of recent events. Yet it is still a commanding strength for Mr. Biden compared with Mrs. Clinton’s five-point deficit among this group four years ago.
Perhaps more surprising in light of recent events is that Mr. Biden has not made substantial gains with nonwhite voters. He leads among them by 46 points in the most recent polls, up a mere percentage point from the polls conducted in March and April. It’s still behind the 50-point margin held by Mrs. Clinton in the final weeks of the 2016 race. Most pollsters do not break out nonwhite voters in much depth because of the small sample size, making it hard to explore the precise sources of Mr. Biden’s relative weakness. But for now, it seems reasonable to assume that his struggles are most acute among young nonwhite voters and nonwhite men, given the overall national figures.
