Since then, the state the president must win has become a global epicenter of the virus, breaking records when it recorded 15,000 new cases in a single day earlier this month. The state added 10,239 new cases on Thursday and reported a record 173 deaths, after Ron DeSantis was among a handful of Republican governors to enthusiastically embrace Trump’s demands for a quick reopening of the economy.
The Republican Party even moved its national convention to Florida from North Carolina after the Democratic governor refused to allow the kind of mass meeting Trump envisioned for his rename speech.
As a result, the approval ratings of both men, both overall and in the pandemic, have dropped. The survey found that Trump’s approval of coronavirus management stood at 37 percent, nearly 10 points below 46 percent in April. Nearly 6 in 10 voters disapprove of Trump’s coronavirus response now, compared to 51 percent in April.
In April, half of voters approved DeSantis’ handling of the coronavirus; That number dropped to 38 in July, while disapproval increased from 41 percent to 51 percent.
Florida voters have more confidence in Biden’s ability to manage the coronavirus, according to the poll, with the former vice president leading Trump by 20 points (58 to 38 percent) whom voters trust most to handle the pandemic.
The poll is another negative news for the president, who has seen his numbers continue to decline as states across the country grapple with a surge in coronavirus. Both national polls and battlefield state polls have shown Biden with an increasing advantage.
According to the RealClearPolitics poll average, Biden has a 7-point lead in Florida, a state whose 29 votes at Trump Electoral College won by less than 2 percent in 2016. That’s only slightly less than the national advantage Biden’s average, showing Trump is behind by 8.7 percentage points.
When it comes to plans to hold the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville in about a month, most Florida voters, 62 percent, said they think it would be unsafe to do so, compared to 34 percent who say it will be. safe. However, among Republicans, nearly 7 out of 10 voters think it will be safe to hold the convention, that party officials have considered moving outdoors and will limit attendance. Just over a quarter of Republican voters think it won’t be safe to hold the convention next month.
The Quinnipiac University poll surveyed 925 self-identified registered voters in Florida by phone July 16-20. The results of the complete survey have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.
