Joseph R. Biden Jr. has a steady lead over President Trump in Nevada, a state that has been shading blue in recent elections but that Mr. Trump is hoping to flip, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll released on Tuesday.Mr. Biden, the Democratic nominee, leads Mr. Trump 49 percent to 43 percent among likely voters in Nevada, with 4 percent undecided or declining to state a preference. The poll was taken after the presidential debate last week, one of Mr. Trump’s last opportunities to change the trajectory of the race.The results are virtually unchanged from another Times/Siena poll in the state conducted this month after Mr. Trump announced he had tested positive for the coronavirus, which found Mr. Biden leading Mr. Trump 48 percent to 42 percent among likely voters.With just a week until Election Day and little time for Mr. Trump to make up any ground, the results underscore the challenges he faces in diverse battleground states that once seemed attainable, if not downright winnable, for an incumbent Republican president. Polls have also shown Mr. Trump trailing Mr. Biden in neighboring Arizona, a state that has not voted for a Democrat for president since 1996.Nevada has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, which could be a wild card in the election. There have been more than 96,000 cases in the state so far, and more than 1,750 deaths, according to a New York Times database. The pandemic has hammered the state’s economy, which relies heavily on the tourism industry, causing unemployment to soar to one of the highest rates in the country; in September, it stood at about 13 percent, disproportionately affecting Latinos and working-class union voters, who are a large part of the Democratic Party’s base in the state.
Keep up with Election 2020
Some Democratic strategists are now bracing for the possibility that a significant number of would-be Democratic voters must contend with more immediate concerns, including feeding their families, than casting a ballot.Mr. Trump has continued to fight for Nevada, visiting the state twice since securing the Republican nomination for re-election; on Wednesday, he is planning to hold a rally just across the border in Bullhead City, Ariz. In September, the Cook Political Report shifted its assessment of the Nevada race in Mr. Trump’s direction, from “likely Democrat” to “lean Democrat.”But Mr. Biden’s polling lead underscores the shifting dynamics of a consummate swing state that has taken on a Democratic tilt. Hillary Clinton won the state in 2016 by just over two percentage points, 10 points less than Barack Obama’s margin of victory in 2008. But in 2018, the state elected Jacky Rosen, a Democrat, who ousted the Republican incumbent senator, Dean Heller; and Steve Sisolak as the first Democratic governor to lead Nevada since 1999.Mr. Biden is being buoyed by Hispanic voters, young voters and women, and trailing Mr. Trump among white voters without college degrees, the survey showed. Among Hispanic voters, who make up about 20 percent of eligible voters in the state, Mr. Biden held a commanding lead over Mr. Trump, 59 percent to 30 percent.And among voters over 65 — a key demographic in sun-rich Nevada — Mr. Biden had a slight edge against Mr. Trump, with 51 percent support to the president’s 45 percent, reflecting Mr. Biden’s support nationally among the crucial, traditionally right-leaning voting bloc. The poll, which was conducted by phone from Oct. 23 to Oct. 26 among 809 likely voters, had a margin of sampling error of roughly plus or minus four percentage points.A strong aversion to Mr. Trump is helping to drive Mr. Biden’s support. Forty-three percent of respondents in the survey said they had a very unfavorable view of the president, including 55 percent of nonwhite voters. Just over half of all respondents said they had a favorable view of Mr. Biden.“I’d rather have anybody in the world except for Trump as president,” said William Watts, 69, a Democrat who is retired and lives in the northwest part of Las Vegas. “In my personal opinion, Trump has been a con artist since Day 1. He’s been a poor businessman. He’s been a marketing person — he just knows how to market himself.”Updated Oct. 27, 2020, 6:16 p.m. ETLorenzo Creighton, 67, a semiretired former casino executive from Las Vegas, said voting for Mr. Biden was “a way to correct the problem — the experiment gone wrong — that is Donald Trump.”“Joe Biden is a pretty solid performer,” said Mr. Creighton, an independent. “We know what his record is, and we know what kind of person he is.”But Christopher Love, a 44-year-old Republican, said he had already voted for Mr. Trump because “I appreciate a person who just says what’s on their mind.”Mr. Love, a general manager from Las Vegas, said he voted for Mrs. Clinton in 2016 because of her support for L.G.B.T.Q. people. But he said he believed that Mr. Trump supported same-sex marriage rights.The survey results showed that voters in Nevada were roughly evenly split on how they viewed the candidates’ performances in the second and final presidential debate on Thursday, with 39 percent saying that Mr. Biden had won, compared with 35 percent for Mr. Trump.Officials began mailing ballots to all registered voters on Sept. 24 in Nevada, where in 2016 nearly 70 percent of all votes were cast before Election Day. So far, 668,000 people have voted early, either by absentee ballot or in person at polling places.Here are the cross tabs for the poll.