KEY POINTS Two recent polls place Biden ahead of Trump in Florida

Biden is also leading in Pennsylvania and Michigan

Trump won all three key battleground states in 2016

Trump's handling of the coronavirus, or his mishandling, may finally be catching up with him. As the presidential election campaign begins to heat up, the latest polling shows former Vice President Joe Biden gaining early leads in states, which will likely prove crucial to winning the White House.

Several recent polls dropped this week show that Florida voters have a growing preference for Biden over Trump. A Quinnipiac poll released Wednesday (April 22) put Biden ahead by four points; a Fox News poll published Friday showed a three-point lead for the former vice president.

Polling in two other major battleground states, Michigan and Pennsylvania, have also brougth bad news for the President. The most recent Michigan poll, released by Fox News on Wednesday, put Biden ahead by eight points; on the same day, their polling results also showed Biden ahead by eight points in Pennsylvania.

In 2016, Trump won all three states, wins that proved crucial to securing his presidential victory.

A national poll released by Economist/YouGov on Wednesday also spelled trouble for Trump, finding 48% of American voters supporting Biden compared to 42% for Trump.

For Trump and many Republicans, it is becoming increasingly clear that winning a second term in the Oval Office isn’t going to be the straight-forward victory they may have thought it would be.

That rapidly fading confidence has followed in the aftermath of the Senate impeachment trial, which ultimately saw Trump acquitted of the charges made against him. After many months of investigation and Congressional hearings, Americans had largely grown indifferent toward the impeachment process, an attitude that worked out in Trump’s favor, briefly earning him the highest approval ratings of his presidency after the acquittal.

That period of euphoria didn’t last long, however. Since the coronavirus infections began to rise across the U.S., millions of Americans have either lost work hours or have altogether become unemployed. This, paired with plummeting stock markets, have put Trump and Republicans in a precarious position. They are fully aware that if the economy isn’t saved from this nosedive ahead of November, it could mean a victory for Biden.

Biden and Trump critics have accused the administration of failing to act on early warning signs regarding the coronavirus pandemic. This will no doubt develop into one of the main lines of attack during Biden’s campaign, which will likely argue that the economy and many lives could have been saved had the current administration acted differently.