Swing state voters weigh in on U.S. election

Swing state voters weigh in on U.S. election

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and U.S. President Donald Trump are about even in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, while the former vice president leads in Michigan and Wisconsin, according to Reuters/Ipsos opinion polls released this week.

This report produced by Chris Dignam.

As the U.S. presidential election enters the final stretch, the two candidates have trained their sights on America's swing states - both holding events this month in states President Donald Trump won narrowly in 2016 -- Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida and Pennsylvania.

Trump on Tuesday traveled to Pennsylvania for a campaign rally in Pittsburgh.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Monday shows he and Democratic candidate Joe Biden are about even in the battleground state, which Trump won in 2016 by less than a percentage point.

But Biden is hoping to recapture it.

In the former VP's native Scranton, voters like Anes Omeragic see a mixed bag.

"Over here where the city part of Scranton is, everybody is for Biden.

But once you go out maybe 10, 15 minutes towards the farms, there's a lot of Trump supporters over there.

But it is Joe Biden's town.

So it's I believe it's more Biden." Scranton pharmacist Karen Gilchrist says lockdown measures earlier in the year played to Trump's political favor.

"I think a lot of people really like Donald Trump.

They kind of don't say that a lot, but I think the trend is going in his direction.

I think the lockdown, I think, really helped him out around here.

We're kind of frustrated with that a little bit." In all-important Florida, which Trump won by less than 2 percentage points four years ago, University of Miami student Nicole Osgood just sees Biden as a vehicle to stop Trump.

"Biden wouldn't be my ideal candidate, probably.

It's just that he's not Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is not a good person as far as social and other concerns.

I think he's done a few good things but the bad things that he's done and said, not even as president, but just as a human being, greatly turned me off.

In Doral, Florida, retiree Jose Cadenas sees it differently.

"Chemotherapy is necessary for cancer.

Trump is chemotherapy.

These people are socialist, communist, pieces of no-good excrement [sic.].

We will accept whatever Trump is.

Better a jerk than a communist." This week, Reuters began taking a closer look at swing states Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan with polls nearly every week from now until Election Day.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday showed Biden leads Trump by 5 percentage points among likely voters in Michigan, while the two were dead even in North Carolina.

Monday's poll showed Biden leading Trump among likely voters in Wisconsin.

The weekly Reuters/Ipsos polls for Arizona and Florida are due out Wednesday.