Joe Biden leads Donald Trump by 15% among registered voters nationwide and has a 20-point lead when it comes to who Americans trust to handle the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new poll conducted Sunday.
In the same ABC News / Washington Post poll, Biden led Trump by 10 points in May and two points in March. Now, among respondents who said they will certainly vote in November, Biden leads by 11%.
Fox News also launched a poll on Sunday. He put Biden ahead in coronaviruses, race relations and economics and eight more points nationwide.
In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Trump insisted that he assumed “always the responsibility for everything” regarding the pandemic.
That interview was taped on Friday, a day before the New York Times and the Washington Post reported that the White House is trying to block funding of the stimulus package for testing and tracing of the coronavirus, the Centers for Disease Control and Disease Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and state and Pentagon programs to address Covid-19 abroad.
Biden Rapid Response Campaign Director Andrew Bates said: “Trump is turning his back on his most important responsibility to the American people. [because] in the words of his own advisers, “he doesn’t want to be distracted by” the worst public health crisis in 100 years. This is absolutely outrageous. “
Trump told Fox News on Sunday that he could veto the next stimulus package aimed at helping unemployed Americans and small businesses if it does not include a payroll tax cut. Since that would dramatically affect social security and other vital programs, most congressmen see him as a non-politician.
Over 3.7 million cases of Covid-19 have been recorded in the U.S., now at a rate of approximately 70,000 per day, and more than 140,000 Americans have died.
According to the ABC / Post survey, Biden has also caught up to Trump in confidence to manage the economy and leads by nine points in confidence to handle crime and security.
That will be a troubling number for Trump, as he seeks to make law and order a central element of his reelection campaign, and portray Biden as a puppet of protesters demanding radical police reform.
In his Fox News Sunday interview, Trump claimed that Biden supported calls to remove the police. Host Chris Wallace noted that was not true, leading to an angry exchange.
Wallace also asked why the United States did not have “a national plan” to deal with the pandemic and if Trump took responsibility for that.
“Look,” said the president, “I always take responsibility for everything because, ultimately, it is also my job. I have to put everyone online. “
That was in contrast to an infamous comment made at a press conference in March, when Trump said “I am not responsible at all” for problems with the federal tests.
On Fox News Sunday, Trump repeated a family complaint, saying that the amount of evidence the United States was doing “skews the numbers.”
The president said he had a good relationship with Dr. Anthony Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force who has reportedly been blocked from television appearances and who has said he has not informed the president on months.
“I spoke to him extensively yesterday,” Trump said, “I have a very good relationship with Dr. Fauci.”
He also said Fauci, who has served six presidents since 1984 and has become a frank and trustworthy public voice in the coronavirus pandemic, was “a bit of an alarmist.”
Biden was due to run campaign announcements on the coronavirus theme during the interview broadcast in six battlefield states. The voting averages put him in the lead in all six.
In the ABC / Post poll, Trump’s overall approval of the job dropped nine points in the previous poll, at 39%.
Trump rejected the opportunity to say that his rival was “senile,” but said: “I would say that he is not competent to be president.” The Fox News poll found that more people think Biden is mentally healthy compared to Trump.
Trump was playing golf in Virginia on Sunday morning, although he found time to tweet about his decision to send federal agents to Portland, Oregon, the site of extensive protests of racism and police brutality.
Regarding Trump’s bad polls, Jason Miller, a campaign adviser, tweeted: “Media pollsters were wrong in 2016 and have gotten even worse in 2020. They have now become law enforcement polls, with the specific goal of e intentionally trying to demotivate Donald Trump’s support base. “
The ABC / Post poll, Miller said, did not include enough registered Republican voters to represent the general electorate.
On Fox News Sunday, Trump was asked if he would accept the election result if he lost to Biden.
“I have to see,” he said. “I have to see. No, I’m not going to say yes. I’m not going to say no, and I didn’t do it the last time either.”
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