Biden leads Trump by 12 points nationally among likely voters: Reuters/Ipsos
poll
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[September 09, 2020]
By Chris Kahn
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Democrat Joe Biden
leads President Donald Trump by 12 percentage points nationally among
likely U.S. voters, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll that also
showed the number of persuadable voters had shrunk compared with four
years ago.
The Sept. 3-8 poll, released on Wednesday, found 52% of likely voters
planned to support Biden, while 40% would back Trump. Three percent said
they would vote for another candidate, and just 5% said they remained
undecided with less than two months to go until the Nov. 3 presidential
election.
The survey showed the number of voters who had not yet backed a
major-party candidate to be less than half of what it was in 2016, and
that Biden currently had the advantage in securing the national popular
vote.
Even if the remaining undecided voters threw their support behind Trump,
the poll showed, he would still lose the popular vote to Biden.
Trump can still win re-election, however, without winning the national
popular vote. U.S. presidential elections are not decided by the
national vote but rather who wins the Electoral College, a contest based
on a tally of wins from state-by-state contests.
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Four years ago, Democrat Hillary Clinton got almost 3 million more votes
than Trump, only to see her Republican rival narrowly win the Electoral
College and the presidency.
This was the first time the Reuters/Ipsos poll measured support for the
2020 candidates among likely voters.
When measured by registered voters who include those less likely to
vote, Biden leads Trump by 8 percentage points, versus his 7-point lead
in a similar poll last week.
PANDEMIC, TRUST IN GOVERNMENT
The poll showed likely voters being primarily motivated by the
coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 186,000 Americans and
put millions out of work, and restoring trust in government.
When asked what was driving their pick for president, 28% said it was
the candidate’s perceived ability to handle the coronavirus, and 23%
said it was the ability to restore trust in government. An additional
19% said it was the candidate’s ability to boost the economy, and 14%
said they were looking for a candidate who is “tough on crime.”
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![](../images/090920pics/news_d9.jpg)
Democratic U.S. presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe
Biden talks about his late son Beau, who volunteered to serve in the
U.S. military, as he discusses President Trump's reported comments
about members of the U.S. military before speaking about the effects
on the U.S. economy of the Trump administration's response to the
coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic during an appearance in
Wilmington, Delaware, U.S., September 4, 2020. REUTERS/Kevin
Lamarque
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Fifty-one percent of likely voters said Biden would be better at
handling the U.S. coronavirus response, while 38% said Trump would
be better.
But Trump has the edge when it comes to their perception of who
would be "tough on crime and civil unrest," with 45% choosing Trump,
while 40% said Biden would be better.
On the economy, neither candidate has the upper hand among likely
voters: 45% of likely voters said they thought Biden would be better
for the national economy and expanding the workforce, while 45% said
they thought Trump would be best.
Biden, who has led Trump for much of the year in most national
opinion polls, has benefited from a recent migration toward the
Democrats among some of the most reliable voters in the United
States: college-educated whites.
While non-college whites still largely support Trump over Biden, the
president has not consolidated the dominant level of support he
enjoyed with that group four years ago when he was running against
Clinton.
So far, opinion polls by other media outlets show Biden with a small
edge over Trump in a handful of competitive states, including
Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Florida. That
advantage also appears to have narrowed in some cases over the past
few weeks.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online, in English, throughout
the United States. It gathered responses from 823 likely voters,
including 390 who identified as Democrats and 351 who identified as
Republicans. The poll has a credibility interval, a measure of
precision, of about 4 percentage points.
(Reporting by Chris Kahn; Editing by Soyoung Kim and Peter Cooney)
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