Joe Biden takes leads as high as 11 points in first polls after Republican convention as pollster says his only hope is to eke out state victories in the Midwest

Joe Biden has taken the lead in the first polls out after the Republican National Convention as both candidates eye the Midwest as a path to presidential victory.  

The Democratic nominee beats President Donald Trump in four national polls out since the conventions ended. Traditionally, conventions give their candidate a boost in the polls and since the GOP convention went last this year, Trump was expected to benefit from the timing.

In one of them, a Grinnell College survey, Biden not only leads Trump 49 per cent to 41 per cent but his eight point advantage comes from a strong showing among women voters and suburbanites. 

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Joe Biden has taken the lead over President Donald Trump in the first polls out after the Republican National Convention

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A new poll shows Biden leading President Trump among the suburban voters who decided the 2016 and 2018 elections

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Biden leads among women 56 per cent to 34 per cent and leads in the suburbs by a 58 per cent to 35 per cent. President Trump won the suburban vote in 2016, which helped put him into office. Those same voters gave Democrats back control of the House in the 2018 midterms.

Trump has courted the suburban house wife, a voting bloc long seen crucial by both parties. These group has also been called soccer moms and Wal-Mart moms. 

Biden also leads the president in three other polls: 51 per cent to 43 in a Morning Consult poll; 50 per cent to 43 per cent in a USA Today/Suffolk poll; and 49 per cent to 47 per cent in an Emerson poll.  

The new numbers come as both campaigns turn their focus to the Midwest, a set of crucial states in the upcoming election.

'It's really difficult to see the president winning the national popular vote. I just think that's out of his reach. The only question now is whether he can put together a narrow majority in battleground states,' Peter Hanson, a political scientist at Grinnell College who directed that poll, told The Hill newspaper. 'That's his only path.' 

Biden has started running ads in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - three states that helped Trump win in 2016. 

And he's also shoring up Democratic support in Minnesota, a state Hillary Clinton won by 1 point in 2016 and the Trump campaign is making a play for it this year. A Republican presidential candidate hasn't won Minnesota since 1972.

'He's on defense,' Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien said on a press briefing call. 'That would be like our campaign scheduling a trip to the reddest state in the country. It shows how the president has changed the map and how Joe Biden and the Democrats' radical policies aren't playing in the Midwest like they used to.'  

Biden, meanwhile, will attempt to turn the conversation back to the coronavirus, tying it to the start of the school year in a speech in Wilmington on Wednesday.

He and Jill Biden will receive a briefing from education experts ahead of his remarks. 

'Too many classrooms are empty because of President Trump's continued and willful failure to offer a meaningful plan to address covid-19,' Biden campaign adviser Symone Sanders said Tuesday night. 'He's barreling forward trying to reopen schools because he thinks it will help his own reelection. It's very clear, glaringly clear, that Donald Trump doesn't have a plan.' 

Jill Biden, a teacher who said she plans to continue her classroom work should she become first lady, is also leading a 'Back-to-School Tour' of 10 cities in eight battleground states this week - some events will be virtual and some will be in person with social distancing measures in place.

President Trump has pushed schools to reopen despite the pandemic, which has infected more than 6.9 million people in the United States and killed more than 185,000 people

Many school districts, however, have opted to begin the school year with virtual learning instead.

The president will be in North Carolina on Wednesday to designate the city of Wilmington as the first American World War II Heritage City. He'll make his remarks from the Battleship North Carolina. 

Voters consistently give President Trump low marks for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and race relations in the country. But they give him strong points on his handling of the economy.

The Biden campaign has been stressing how Trump's COVID response has affected the everyday lives of Americans. 

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President Donald Trump speaks to reporters as he surveys riot damage in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Tuesday 

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President Donald Trump walks through burned out buildings Tuesday during his trip to Kenosha, Wisconsin 

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Joe Biden brings pizza to fire fighters during a visit to Pittsburgh on Monday

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Jill Biden is leading a 'Back-to-School Tour' of 10 cities in eight battleground states this week

But Biden has also been under pressure to respond to Trump's rhetoric on the race demonstrations that have sprung up over the country.

Trump calls himself the 'law and order' president and has blasted protesters.He  was in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Tuesday to survey the damage from protests and riots there after white police shot Jacob Blake, a black man, seven times in front of his children.

'These are not peaceful protests but domestic terror,' he said during his visit.

Biden, meanwhile, blasted the president in a speech in Pittsburgh on Monday. 

Biden went after Trump calling him a 'toxic presence' and accused him of 'stoking violence in our cities' asking voters, 'Do you really feel safer under Trump?'  Biden also condemned riots and looting and called on Americans to 'stand against violence - in every form it takes.'