Biden judged more mentally sound than Trump in new Fox News poll

Fox News released its first national poll of likely voters in the 2020 election on Sunday, and Democrat Joe Biden leads by 5 percentage points, 51 parent to 46 percent, right at edge of the margin of sampling error. "Likely voters trust Trump over Biden on just one issue: the economy, by 5 points," Fox News notes. "Biden is favored on racial inequality (+12), coronavirus (+8), health care (+8), Supreme Court nominations (+7), and immigration (+7 points)," plus "policing and criminal justice" (+7) and "maintaining law and order" (Biden +2).

"Law and order," or course, is Trump's current campaign theme. Another frequent attack he and his surrogates have been making against Biden is that the former vice president isn't mentally up to the job. Likely voters disagree, Fox News found. A 51 percent majority said they "think Joe Biden has the mental soundness to serve effectively as president" versus 47 percent who said the same of Trump; 51 percent of likely voters said Trump does not have the mental soundness to be president, versus 45 percent who said the same of Biden.

Biden also topped Trump on the question of having the compassion to serve effectively as president, with 62 percent saying Biden passes that test while 54 percent said Trump failed it. Biden leads Trump in the question of who could bring the country together better by 13 points, but 51 percent of registered and likely voters guessed Trump would be re-elected.

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RealClearPolitics has Biden up 7.5 points in its aggregate of national polls, 50.5 percent to 43 percent; FiveThirtyEight's polling average has Biden ahead by 7.3 points, 50.6 percent to 43.3 percent, and its forecast currently gives him 75 percent odds of winning. The Fox News poll, conducted Sept. 7-10 under the joint direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Co. (R), reached 1,191 likely voters by phone, and its margin of sampling error is ±2.5 percentage points.