Presumptive Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe BidenJoe Biden Pelosi says Trump’s decision to reverse the fair housing rule is a “betrayal of our nation’s founding values.” Trump says he would consider pardons for those involved in Mueller’s investigation Trade negotiations should not shorten internal debate PLUS has opened a 13 point advantage over President TrumpDonald John Trump Pelosi says Trump’s decision to reverse the fair housing rule is a “betrayal of our nation’s founding values.” Trump says he would consider pardons for those involved in the Mueller investigation. Fauci says he and his family have experienced “serious threats” during the pandemic. MORE in Florida’s key battlefield state, according to a new survey.
The former vice president led Trump from 51 to 38 percent in the latest Quinnipiac poll released Thursday, a sharp increase since the pollster last polled Florida voters in April, when Biden led Trump from 46 to 42. percent.
Trump narrowly won Florida and his 29 electoral votes in 2016, beating the then Democratic candidate Hillary clintonHillary Diane Rodham Clinton Fox News Poll Shows Trump Following Biden in Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania. Cook Political Report Shifts Various Senate Races to Democrats’ Super PAC Democrats to Launch Six-Figure Ads Supporting the Purchase of Biden in Texas by just over 1 percentage point.
But the president is in a considerably worse position now than in July 2016, when Trump had a narrow 42 percent and 39 percent lead over Clinton in the Sunshine State.
The state’s disapproval rating in the state also increased, according to the Quinnipiac poll. In April, 51 percent of Florida voters disapproved of the work Trump was doing. That number has since increased, with 58 percent of voters surveyed in the state disapproving of the president’s performance.
When it comes to the most pressing issues, Trump leads Biden between 50 and 47 percent when it comes to the economy, but lags behind on all other issues. In particular, 58 percent of respondents said Biden would better manage the coronavirus pandemic, while 38 percent said Trump would. Similarly, 55 percent said Biden would be better off in a crisis compared to 42 percent who elected Trump.
COVID-19, which has infected more than 4 million people in the country and killed more than 140,000, has been a major contributor to Trump’s poll numbers that have plummeted in recent months.
Throughout the pandemic, the President has faced constant criticism of his administration’s handling of the crisis. This criticism was only amplified in the past month when a resurgence of COVID-19 spread throughout the southern United States.
Florida, one of the first states to reopen its economy amid the pandemic, is now the epicenter of the virus. On Thursday, the state reported the highest number of deaths from the virus in a single day at 173. Its previous high was 156 on July 16. The seven-day state average for new daily cases is over 11,000.
In the poll, nearly 60 percent of Florida voters said they disapproved of the way the president handled the coronavirus, and only 37 percent said they approved. This was another jump from the April figures, when 46 percent approved and 51 percent disapproved. Most respondents, 70 percent, described the spread of the virus in Florida as “out of control,” and 83 percent said it was a serious problem.
Trump, who changed his state of residence from New York to Florida in 2019, recently traveled to the state for a trio of appearances, where he avoided discussing key Florida numbers.
Instead, the president focused on the military and the southern border wall, barely mentioning the pandemic, although he said the United States “would do very well” against it.
“As long as he is president, I will not allow his sacred mission to be undermined or attacked in any way,” Trump said during comments at the headquarters of the United States Southern Command in Doral at the time. “I will have no open borders, we will not abolish the police and we will not reduce budgets for our armed forces, and we will not allow our country to be inundated with deadly drugs.”
On July 10, the day Trump was in Florida, state health officials reported 11,433 new cases of coronavirus.
Since then, Trump has given the coronavirus a more sober tone in the face of growing disapproval of his handling of the pandemic, acknowledging earlier this week that it “will get worse before it gets better.”
The President has also taken a strong stance that the nation’s schools should reopen for in-person teaching in the fall, even threatening to withhold funds from schools that do not.
When asked about sending K-12 students from the state to physical classrooms in the coming weeks, 62 percent of respondents said it was not safe for students to return.
A separate poll by St. Pete Polls for the Florida Politics and AARP Florida website that was also released Thursday showed that Biden had a six-point lead over Trump, 50 percent to 44 percent.
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