President Trump Trails Joe Biden by 10 Points Nationally in Final Days of Election
Biden leads, 52% to 42%, among registered voters in national WSJ/NBC News poll; race in battleground states is narrowing
President Trump trails by 10 percentage points among voters nationally in the final days of his re-election campaign, facing substantial public anxiety over the coronavirus pandemic but with broad approval of his management of the economy, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds.
Former Vice President Joe Biden leads Mr. Trump, 52% to 42%, in the poll’s final reading of voter opinion before Election Day, essentially unchanged from Mr. Biden’s 11-point advantage in mid-October. In particular, women and seniors have turned against the president, the poll finds, with both groups favoring Mr. Biden by double-digit margins.
However, the survey finds the race tightening when the landscape is narrowed to a set of 12 battleground states. Mr. Biden holds a 6-point lead in those states, 51% to 45%, compared with a 10-point lead last month.
Mr. Biden’s advantage in swing states is within the poll’s margin of error and corresponds with the many swing-state surveys that show a close race and potential path for Mr. Trump to build an Electoral College majority without winning the national popular vote, as he did in 2016.
“This election is probably the most competitive 10-point race I’ve seen,” said Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted the survey with Democrat Jeff Horwitt. Mr. Trump retains strong support among his base of largely working-class, white voters, who are plentiful in the swing states.
While Mr. Biden holds large leads among people who have voted early or plan to, Mr. Trump holds a big lead among those who say they will vote on Election Day. “If you have historic early vote, I know we’re going to have historic vote on Election Day,” Mr. McInturff said of the size of this year’s voter turnout.
Mr. Horwitt said that Mr. Trump is facing an electorate that holds negative views of his overall job performance. In the 41 Journal/NBC News surveys that measured views of how Mr. Trump has handled his office, he said, “there was not a single poll that produced a result where more Americans approved than disapproved of his performance as president.”
The 2020 campaign is approaching its end amid near-record voter interest and disquiet over the coronavirus pandemic that on Friday reached a high for new cases. Some 83% of voters rate themselves at the highest levels of interest in the campaign, a share unseen since just before former President Barack Obama’s first election in 2008.
Asked which issue was most important to their decision in the election—the economy or coronavirus—voters were divided almost evenly, a sign of how much the pandemic has upended expectations at the start of the election season. Some 41% of voters named the economy as the most important issue, while 38% cited coronavirus—a 3-point gap that narrowed from 8 points last month.
One of Mr. Trump’s strongest advantages is that 55% of voters approve of his handling of the economy, 14 points more than who disapprove. One of his top challenges is that 57% disapprove of his management of the pandemic, 17 points more than who approve. And in a sign of substantial concern about the virus, 55% said the worst of the pandemic was yet to come.
More voters view Mr. Trump unfavorably than favorably, with “very positive” and “very negative” views tying or close to record highs. By a narrow margin, more voters view Mr. Biden in a positive than a negative light.
The Journal/NBC News poll interviewed 1,000 registered voters nationally from Oct. 29-31. The margin of error for that sample is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The poll also included interviews with 833 registered voters in swing states. The margin of error for that sample is 3.4 percentage points. The swing states included were Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.