New poll finds Biden lead widening to 13%

A new poll done by CNBC/Change Research, released data saying that former Vice President Biden widened is lead against President Trump by 13%, and 53% of likely voters said they thought he did better during the debate. Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman joins The Final Round panel to break down the poll and discuss how telling it is for the November election.

Video Transcript

SEANA SMITH: A new poll showing that Joe Biden is widening his lead over President Trump in the 2020 race. A CNBC Change Research survey released today showing that Joe Biden is garnering 54% of the vote to Trump's 41%. And Rick Newman, once you also go through this poll, it also breaks down the performance that we saw on Tuesday, just in terms of what voters are thinking. The polls showing that 53% saying that Biden won the debate the other night.

RICK NEWMAN: Yeah, that's a big number. I don't think even the Biden campaign thinks Biden won the debate by that much. I mean, he survived. Let's put it that way. And he didn't declass himself the way Trump did. So that's a net gain for Biden. But what's really happening here, Seana, this poll is-- shows a bigger margin for Biden than a lot of other polls, and it could be overstating Biden's lead a little bit. But I think we are seeing Biden widen his lead. You know, even if it's in the, you know-- in small percentage numbers, it's just looking more and more dire for Trump.

I'll throw in two other data points here. The university-- the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, which is one of the top places that tracks the electoral vote, they now say they're estimating Biden has 279 electoral votes based on the way they think states are going to vote, and Trump only has 179. And there are still 80 toss-up votes.

So you need 270 to win, so they're already forecasting that Biden's likely to have enough electoral votes to win and possibly win handily. And the last thing we were just talking about off air, Scott Adams, who created the "Dilbert" comic strip and has been an unabashed Trump supporter, today said he's no longer supporting Trump because of Trump's support for white supremacist groups. So not looking good for Trump.

MYLES UDLAND: Rick, I think everyone is still viewing the world through a 2016 lens. And so they say, oh, well, the-- all polls are actually 49 Biden, 51 Trump, regardless of what the headline number is. Can you maybe briefly summarize how different the situation is now with polling averages in national polling, between how Biden is running versus Trump versus how Hillary Clinton was polling against Trump?

RICK NEWMAN: Yes, I can. Everybody knows that surprises could happen. And no one should ever think this is a done deal, even if it's even wider than this margin on the night before election day. But Biden leads Trump by more than Hillary Clinton did at this point in 2016. And he has some other things going for him that Hillary Clinton didn't. One important one is that his unfavorability ratings are much lower. People don't overwhelmingly love Joe Biden, but there aren't a lot of people who dislike Joe Biden.

And we know from a lot of anecdotal reporting and data in 2016, a lot of people voted for Donald Trump just because they wanted to vote against Hillary Clinton. And there just are not that many people who want to vote against Joe Biden. One more thing I'll toss in is the Democrats, the party itself was fractured at this point in 2016 with Bernie Sanders' very bitter feeling the party had kind of cheated him out of some votes. That is not happening this time around.

Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, AOC, that whole wing of the party is behind Biden. And let's remember, 12% of Bernie Sanders-- people who voted for Bernie Sanders in the primaries in 2016 actually voted for Donald Trump in the general election. That was kind of an embarrassment for Sanders. And I think he's actually working hard to make sure that doesn't happen this time. So it could still go either way, but Joe Biden has advantages that Hillary Clinton did not have in 2016.