Biden maintains a steady lead over Trump, and a new Pew poll hints at the secret of his success
With just a few weeks before people start mailing in their ballots in the 2020 presidential election — probably — Democrat Joe Biden maintains his steady lead over President Trump. A Fox News poll released Thursday had Biden up 7 percentage points, 49 percent to 42 percent, more or less even with his 8 point lead in the July Fox News poll, though down from Biden's 12 point chasm in June. Pew Research Center registered an 8 point advantage for Biden in its own survey Thursday, 53 percent to 45 percent — and Biden's main selling point, it seems, is that he isn't Trump.
Biden is viewed much more favorably than Trump in the Fox News poll: While Trump is 12 points underwater — 55 percent unfavorable, 43 percent favorable — Biden's favorability rating is 53 percent versus 43 percent unfavorable. In both polls, Trump holds a narrow lead on the economy but lags Biden on all other issues.
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The Fox News poll found 54 percent of voters saying the federal government failed to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak seriously enough and 85 percent are concerned about its spread. "But inside the White House, Trump's top political aides are increasingly assured about their response — feeling like they're finally getting a handle on how to fight the disease," Politico reports. "As the crippling crisis turns toward heading into a third season, an alternate reality is taking shape inside the White House even in the face of spiking case counts, long lags in test processing, and a COVID-19 death toll that regularly tops 1,000 Americans a day."
Both polls are in line with other national surveys of the race: RealClearPolitics shows Biden with an average 7.4-point lead, while FiveThirtyEight has him beating Trump by 8.1 points. The Fox News poll was conducted Aug. 9-12 among 1,000 registered voters nationwide contacted by phone. Its margin of sampling error is ± 3 percentage points. Pew surveyed 9,114 registered voters July 27 to Aug. 2, and its margin of sampling error is ± 1.5 points.
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