With the 2020 U.S. presidential election getting closer, Florida’s status as a battleground state has never been more apparent.

A poll conducted by FAU’s Business and Economics Polling Initiative (BEPI) surveyed 631 likely Florida voters from Sept. 11 to 12 as it shows former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump in a deadlock at 50 percent each.

With decided voters, Biden leads Trump 49-46. Undecided voters, who composed five percent in the poll, leaned towards Trump with four percent to Biden’s one percent which resulted in the 50-50 tie.

According to Politico, another Florida poll that was conducted between Sept. 15 to 20 by Washington Post-ABC News surveyed 765 registered voters as it shows Trump ahead of Biden 51-47, while RealClearPolitics has their Florida poll with Biden leading by one percent against Trump.

Dr. Monica Escaleras, professor and director of FAU’s BEPI, said the poll asked two screening questions, with the first asking the voters their party affiliation and the second being their intention to vote.

“Those that chose ‘not sure how I will vote’ and ‘I don’t plan to vote in this election’ were eliminated from the sample,” Dr. Escaleras said. “Thus, our sample constitutes registered voters that are likely to vote.”

Dr. Escaleras said three models of data collection were used to get a representative sample.

“Data was collected from September 11-12, 2020 using a blended model of 245 cell mobile responses, 157 online responses provided by Dynata [a global market research firm], and 229 landline respondents by IVR [Interactive Voice Response] with both cell and landline samples provided by Aristotle, Inc.,” said Dr. Escaleras. “Then, the data was weighted based on gender, age, education, party affiliation, and ethnicity-based on 2016 US Census Voting and Registration modeling.”

According to Dr. Escaleras, turnout will be the key factor in the upcoming election, due to the small percentage of undecided voters shown in the poll.

“Our poll shows that only five percent of the voters are undecided, thus it seems that this election is less about persuasion but more about turnout,” said Dr. Escaleras.

The last day to register to vote in the election for Florida is Oct. 5, as early voting will begin Oct. 19. To register, click here.

Richard Pereira is a staff writer for the University Press. For information regarding this or other stories, email [email protected] or tweet him @Rich26Pereira.