Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is up 49-42 percent over President Donald Trump in a head-to-head matchup, according to a national Fox News poll of registered voters. Nine percent is undecided as a third-party candidate back.
Since March 2019, Trump’s support has remained between 38-42 percent, and Biden’s leadership has been 16 times outside the polls’ level of sampling error. At the same time, the Democrat’s current lead is slightly lower than its 8-point lead last month (49-41 percent) and 12-point lead in June (50-38 percent).
The survey was conducted Sunday through Wednesday, so more than half of the interviews were completed before Tuesday’s California announcement. Kamala Harris as Biden’s running mate was completed.
Voters have a fairly bleak view about 80 days before Election Day. Here is the background of the presidential race:
A large number of voters remain concerned about the spread of coronavirus (85 percent), more than half think the federal government is not responding well enough to the outbreak (54 percent), and only one in five think it is a virus most or completely under control (19 percent). Plus, a majority (53 percent) say that rebuilding more of the economy now is not worth the potential health risk.
– On the economy, most ratings are negative (71 percent only honest or bad) and 32 percent feel they are lagging behind financially, up from 26 percent a year ago.
Big picture: more than half rejected Trump’s job performance (54 percent) and two-thirds are dissatisfied with the direction of the country (66 percent) – including 4 in 10 Republicans.
Despite Biden’s leadership, when asked who supports their neighbors, voters place Trump at the top: 39 percent think the people next to them are running for president, while 34 percent say Biden. More Republicans (67 percent) think their neighbors will back Trump than Democrats believe their Biden will support them (56 percent).
READ FOX NEWS POLL RESULTS HERE
“By asking about their neighbors’ preferences, we get an idea of how voters think people like them see the race,” said Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who leads Fox News Poll with Democrat Chris Anderson. “Some may think this is evidence of embarrassed Trump voters. But the fairer interpretation is that Biden supporters are a little more likely to think that a good number of Trump voters live next door. ”
Trump underperforms his 2016 support among some key groups. He won white evangelical Christians with 61 points, whites without college degree by 36, and men by 11, according to a study by Pew Research Center of validated voters.
The new poll puts Trump ahead with 38 points among white evangelicals, by 17 among whites without degrees, and the candidates are among men. Plus, he won seniors by 9 points and now they prefer Biden by 9 points.
Biden is also favored by women (+12 points), suburbs (+16), Hispanics (+20), and Blacks (+70). Although these numbers look good, he rates Hillary Clinton’s performances among Hispanics (+38) and Blacks (+85). It’s too early to say whether the Harris announcement has changed support among women like Blacks.
Some 62 percent are extremely interested in the election – and among just those voters, Biden’s lead expands to 55-41 percent. He has been helped by more of his supporters (71 percent) than Trump’s (61 percent) extreme interest.
In addition, more of those who support Biden (73 percent) than Trump (66 percent) say they are extremely committed to voting for their candidate.
How will they actually do that? Twice as many Democrats (41 percent) as Republicans (20 percent) said they would cast an early post as an absent vote. In contrast, twice as many Republicans (45 percent) as Democrats (23 percent) plan to vote in person on election day.
While voters disagree on whether Biden is a strong leader (47-47), they say decisively that Trump is not with 10 points (44-54).
By a narrow 2-point margin, voters say Biden is honest and trustworthy (48-46) and by a wide spread of 25 points, they say Trump is not (36-61). Looking at Trump’s honesty are the same as those in the Fox News poll just before the last election (35-61 percent, November 3-6, 2016).
Biden is also preferred over Trump over top issues. He is seen as better at dealing with race relations (by 19 points), health care (+15), coronavirus (+14 points), relations with China (+11), nominating the next justice to the Supreme Court (+10), immigration ( + 7), and policing and criminal justice (+6).
There is one exception: Trump has more confidence in the economy, by 3 points.
Meanwhile, Trump’s personal favorable rating is negative by 12 points (43 favorable vs. 55 unfavorable), while Biden’s is positive by 10 (53-43). These ratings have not changed much since June.
Vice President Mike Pence is under water below 10 points (41 favorable vs. 51 unfavorable), while Harris is on positive territory by 4 points (44-40).
Overall, 44 percent approve of the job Trump does as president and 54 percent disapprove. In July, it was 45-54 percent. Trump’s approval rating never reached 50 percent, although it came close in April when it was 49-49 percent.
Trump’s best rating is on the economy (+4) – it’s the only problem where more voters approve than disapprove (50-46 percent). He received negative reviews on race ratios (-22 points), foreign policy (-15), health care (-13), immigration (-12), and coronavirus (-10).
Poll-pourri
Fifty-five percent of voters say they will get a vaccine for coronavirus, and 74 percent favor that everyone in the U.S. should wear a mask when they are outside their home. To varying degrees, majorities of Democrats (90 percent), Independents (67 percent) and Republicans (58 percent) want to demand masks. On the fax, Democrats (66 percent) and independents (54 percent) are more likely than Republicans (43 percent) to say they will get it.
– By a margin of 20 points, more voters have an advantage than an unfavorable opinion of ObamaCare (56-36 percent), the most positive views recorded in a Fox News poll.
– About half, 47 percent, say the pace of civil rights in the US is too slow. That includes 66 percent of Blacks, 57 percent of suburban women, and 53 percent of suburban whites. Three times as many Democrats (69 percent) as Republicans (23 percent) feel it is too slow.
This 9-12 August 2020, conducted under the joint direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company (R), this Fox News Poll includes interviews with 1,000 randomly selected registered voters nationwide who spoke with live interviewers across both landline and mobiles. The question has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points for all registered voters.
