Rasmussen Reports Trump and Biden Tied in PA, Trump Polling at 27% Among Black Voters

A new poll finds President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden locked in a dead heat in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, where Trump is also receiving significant support from minority voters.

Rasmussen Reports released a survey Thursday that showed Trump and Biden tied in the commonwealth, with each candidate taking 46 percent support from likely voters.

Additionally, 4 percent of voters do not intend to vote for either candidate, while another 4 percent of those surveyed remain undecided on a candidate. 

But of the 82 percent of likely voters who know who they intend to vote for, Trump leads Biden 51 percent to 49 percent.

Even more good news for the president is that he has the support of 27 percent of black likely voters in Pennsylvania. 

The Rasmussen poll surveyed 1,000 likely voters and was conducted between Aug. 25 and Aug. 27 with a margin error of +/- 3 percentage points.

If Pennsylvania is indicative in any way of how black voters feel about the president nationally, it could spell disaster for Biden and Democrats. 

Trump has worked hard to court black voters for years by focusing not only on bringing jobs to the black community, but on implementing criminal justice reform as well.

Biden, like other Democrats, is strong on the rhetoric, but Democrats have never delivered results for black Americans.

Trump, on the other hand, can boast he presided over an economy which saw black unemployment fall to its lowest level in almost 50 years.

In 2016, Trump received only 8 percent of black votes, NBC News reported on its day-after autopsy of Hillary Clinton’s stunning loss, citing exit polls.

There is a strong belief among some that Trump could attract far more black voters in November.

Fox News contributor Leo Terrell, a former Trump critic, told Fox News host Sean Hannity this week he will be voting for the president, and he doesn’t think he will be alone.

“I brought over 300,000 black Democrats to vote for Trump. I’m bringing more and more and more,” Terrell said.

“Trump is going to get the highest number of black votes ever in modern-day history for a Republican. Black voters are voting for Trump.”

The Rasmussen survey is no outlier in showing a significant increase in popularity for Trump among black voters:

A survey conducted late last month by The Hill and HarrisX also concluded that 24 percent of black voters approved of Trump’s job performance.

The fact that the Rasmussen survey showed Trump deadlocked with Biden in Pennsylvania is excellent news for the president, as polls for the commonwealth in 2016 showed him behind Clinton, even in November of that year.

The RealClearPolitics average for Pennsylvania in the days leading up to the election had Clinton ahead by 2.1 percentage points.

On Oct. 27, 2016, The New York Times reported Trump was down by 7 percentage points in Pennsylvania and concluded the state was “out of reach.”

He went on to carry the state by a slim margin of roughly 44,000 votes, despite polls having him down big, according to The Times.

Now in September 2020, nearly four years later, a poll shows Trump tied with a Democrat in Pennsylvania, with significant support from black likely voters in the commonwealth.

And that was before Trump spoke to an enthusiastic and large crowd in Latrobe on Thursday:

Enthusiasm for those who support the president in Pennsylvania is certainly not lacking.