Public preference for Joe Biden over Donald Trump in trust to handle the coronavirus pandemic has skyrocketed since March in the latest ABC News / Washington Post poll, propelling Biden, along with other measures, in the race for the White House.
Three and a half months ago, the two candidates were virtually confident in handling the pandemic, Trump +2 percentage points, 45-43%. Today, with COVID-19 cases popping up across the country, Biden leads Trump on the issue by a 20-point margin, 54-34%.
Check the PDF for complete results, charts and tables.
Biden also moved forward, almost on par with Trump, in confidence to manage the economy, after falling behind in March. Biden leads Trump by 9 points in crime management and security, a Trump focal point in recent weeks. And in race relations, Biden leads by his biggest margin, 25 points, 58-33%.
Biden has his own risks, particularly a pronounced lack of enthusiasm for his candidacy. However, the impact of that deficit remains to be seen: for two-thirds of his supporters, it’s not primarily about choosing Biden, but about defeating Trump.
The president also has other challenges, ranging from performance evaluations to personal attributes. As reported on Friday, approval for its management of the pandemic has dropped from 51% in late March to 38% now, with disapproval of up to 15 points. He has lost 7 points in the approval of his handling of the economy, at 50%, with a disapproval of up to 9.
Trump’s overall job approval rating is 39% in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates: 9 points over the course of the pandemic, disapproving until 11. Trump remains the first president in modern polls than ever achieves approval by the majority works in the office, with the lowest career average recorded.
Trump’s growing disapproval of job performance has a broad basis. They have risen 22 points since March among those who are very concerned about contracting the coronavirus, up to 82%. It is also in two of its key support groups, +20 points among rural Americans and +12 points among white evangelical Protestants, at 45 and 30%, respectively. Disapproval also increased especially among southerners (+18 points); and blacks, women, moderate and suburban, all from 15 to 16 years old.
Out of partisanship, Democrats now almost unanimously disapprove of Trump’s job in office, rising 17 points in three and a half months to 95%; 56% of independents also disapprove, 11 more. Among Republicans, 16% disapprove, 10 points more than at the end of May.
Beyond the approval of the job, Biden leads Trump by 26 points in being seen as having the best personality and temperament to serve as president. In a related finding, a vast 76% of Americans say Trump, speaking of people with whom he disagrees, “crosses the line in terms of what is acceptable.” Fifty points less, 26%, say Biden does the same.
61% say Trump has done more to divide than unite the country, more than he said about either of his two predecessors in office. When asked which candidates would do the most to unite the Americans, Biden leads by another wide margin, 57-33%.
Biden also leads by double digits on other personal attributes: better understanding the problems of people like you (+17 points), being more honest and trustworthy (+14), better representing his personal values (+12) and having a better idea of what the United States should represent (+10). Trump pushes parity with just one, which is the strongest leader, even a 45-45% split.
While opinions are similar among registered voters, Biden loses ground on three of these items among those most likely to vote. In the biggest difference, he goes from a 26-point advantage among all adults in having the personality and temperament to serve as president to a slight 11-point advantage among prospective voters, 53-42%. It also slips in among potential voters on who understands their problems best and who is the strongest leader.
Voting preference
These gaps in the candidates’ opinions inform their current position: Americans divide 54-39% in favor of Biden if the elections were today. Among registered voters, the margin is the same, 55-40%. Among likely voters, Biden continues to lead, albeit with 10 closest points, 54-44%, indicating the Republican Party’s usual advantage in turnout, potentially one of Trump’s strongest weapons.
Biden’s lead among registered voters exceeds a virtual stalemate, 49-47%, in late March, before the spiraling pandemic situation affected Trump’s ratings. Biden, similarly, was only +4 among registered voters in January, as economic sentiment peaked at 20 years. That said, what’s next may go: Biden led Trump by 17 points last October and 15 in September, which he then abandoned, only to fully regain his balance now.
Trump’s withdrawal from the early days of the coronavirus outbreak has been greatest in one of his main groups, rural Americans, and his leadership among registered voters in this group fell from 47 points in late March to 18 points now, 56-38%. As noted on Friday, its rating to handle the pandemic has also declined, especially in rural areas. (The race is 52-43%, Biden-Trump, between the suburbs, and 68-27% in urban areas, both essentially stable).
Regional changes are also substantial. Biden advanced in the Midwest, from a deadlock to a 17-point lead. It’s close in the south, 50-44%, Biden-Trump, compared to a 13-point Trump lead in late March. And Biden has a 15-point lead in the northeast and 30 points in the west.
In a key core group, Biden leads 54-37% among independents, unchanged from May but from a uniform division in March.
Biden now leads by 25 points among women, doubles her margin at the end of March, and is a non-significant +4 among men, compared to -9 among men then. This includes a broad Biden advantage of 60-36% among suburban women, compared to a virtual stalemate among suburban men, 49-45%, Trump-Biden.
Biden has a 30-point lead among college graduates, 63-33%, up from +15 points at the end of March. (Hillary Clinton won this group by just 10 points in 2016, 52-42%.) And Trump has gone from an 18-point lead among white registered voters to just 4 points now, while 94% of registered voters Blacks support Biden.
White Catholics, potentially a group of undecided voters, are essentially evenly divided, 51-47%, Trump-Biden, vs. +13 for Trump in March; Trump beat white Catholics 61-37% in 2016. Trump is currently better, 61-34%, among non-college white men, but this is a group he won with 71% four years ago. Across the political spectrum, college-educated white women favor Biden 60-38%, compared to their 51-44% vote for Clinton over Trump in 2016.
Trump retains the support of 90% of registered voters who say they voted for him in 2016, but loses 8% of them to Biden. Biden, meanwhile, wins 95% of Clinton supporters in 2016, with 3% for Trump.
Remarkably, too, Biden wins registered voters who are very concerned about contracting the coronavirus by an overwhelming 82-14%, and those who are somewhat concerned about a narrower 53-41%. Those who are less concerned, on the contrary, prefer Trump, 69-26%.
In fact, in a statistical analysis called regression, being concerned about contracting the coronavirus is a significant independent predictor of voting preference, controlling for other factors, such as partisanship, ideology, and demographics.
Mail it?
Eighty-six percent of registered voters say they will surely vote in the November elections, slightly more than normal at the moment in recent cycles: it was 79-81% in July 2016, 2012 and 2008 alike.
How they will vote is another matter. 38% of Americans say they would rather vote by mail, 59% in person. In 2016, by context, 24% voted by mail, according to the U.S. Electoral Assistance Commission.
It is a key point of interest given the efforts of some states to encourage voting by mail as a way to prevent virus infection at polling places in person. If the vote by mail increases, counting those ballots could delay the counting of votes beyond Election Night.
Trump has rejected voting by mail, claiming that he is open to fraud, and the argument has some resonance: 49% consider voting by mail vulnerable to significant levels of fraud, while 43% think adequate protections against significant fraud are in place.
Partisanship divides these views. Among Biden’s supporters, only 28% consider voting by mail vulnerable to substantial fraud, and 54% say this is how they prefer to vote. By contrast, among Trump supporters, 78% consider voting by mail to be vulnerable, and only 17% prefer to vote that way.
Among people who prefer to vote by mail, 23% consider it vulnerable to major fraud. This rises to 67% of those who prefer to vote in person.
Other factors come into play. The preference for voting by mail is much higher in the West, 56%, which probably reflects its prevalence there, compared to 25% in the Northeast. It is also much higher among college graduates than undergraduates.
Because of how people vote for whom they vote, the course of the pandemic is a clear wild card in the November elections. So, as noted, it is the question of enthusiasm. Among registered voters who support Trump, 69% are very excited to do it, far better than it was for him in 2016. That compares to 39% enthusiasm for Biden among his supporters. As enthusiasm translates into participation, this could jeopardize Biden’s current leadership.
Furthermore, the motivation for Biden may come from another direction. Among Trump supporters, 72% say re-electing Trump is more important to them than defeating Biden. Among Biden’s supporters, it’s almost the opposite: Sixty-seven percent say their main interest is to defeat Trump.
Allison De Jong, Christine Filer, Steven Sparks and Sofi Sinozich contributed to this report.
Methodology
This ABC News / Washington Post survey was conducted by landline and cell phone from July 12 to 15, 2020, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,006 adults, including 845 registered voters. Results have a sampling point margin of error of 3.5 points for the entire sample and 4.0 points among registered voters, including design effects. The partisan divisions are 30-24-39%, Democrat-Republican-Independent.
The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates of New York, NY, and Abt Associates of Rockville, Maryland, collected samples and collected data. See the details on the survey methodology here.
.
