Poll: Trump Beating Biden in Quality of Voters, Not Necessarily Quantity
In a national poll released Thursday, former Vice President Joe Biden appears to be edging out President Donald Trump in November’s general election.
However, as was the case with the many 2016 polls declaring Hilary Clinton the likely winner, appearances can be deceiving.
While the former vice president has more generalized support, Trump’s base is much more loyal.
The poll, conducted between March 27-30 for Grinnell College by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines, Iowa, is based on phone interviews with over 1,000 U.S. adults aged 18 and over and has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
When asked who they would vote for “[i]f the general election were held today,” 47 percent of voters said they’d vote for the Biden while 43 percent said they’d stand by the current president.
The Biden voters, however, appear to be somewhat hesitant in their support.
Only 55 percent of likely Biden voters said their minds were made up, while 82 percent of Trump voters said they were all-in with their candidate.
Another 43 percent of Biden voters responded that they “could be persuaded” into choosing a different candidate.
For Trump voters, that number was 17 percent.
That falls in line with a recent prediction made by former Obama adviser David Plouffe.
“I think [Trump is] going to turn out voters almost at a historical level on his behalf, so that makes him very dangerous if you’re Joe Biden,” Plouffe told the “Fox News Rundown” podcast Thursday.
These results follow a trend of growing support for the president amid his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
According to Real Clear Politics, the approval rating for Trump’s handling of the crisis is up to 49.8 percent, whereas his disapproval rating stands at 47.7.
There has been bipartisan praise for Trump’s recent efforts, with a pair of Democratic governors having good things to say about the president.
“His team has been on it. I know a team when they’re on it, and I know a team when they’re not on it. His team is on it,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a news conference on March 17.
California Gov. Newsom praised the Trump administration’s response to the pandemic in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Wednesday.
“Let me just be candid with you. I’d be lying to you to say that he hasn’t been responsive to our needs. He has,” Newsom said.
While Trump is soaring, Biden appears to be floundering.
Throughout his campaign, the former vice president has made a series of gaffes and nonsensical statements that lead many to believe he is mentally unfit to be president.
This was most recently evidenced in an awkward MSNBC interview with Yasmin Vossoughian.
Vossoughian asked the former VP what his message is to “terrified” Americans during the current crisis. His response was completely unintelligible.
“We have to do at least several things. One, we have to depend on what the president’s going to do right now, and first of all he has to tell — wait till the cases before anything happens. Look, the whole idea is he’s got to get in place things things that were shortages of,” Biden said.
With interview performances like this, it’s no surprise Democratic voters remain unsure about their presumptive nominee.
While some polls might suggest otherwise, it appears as though Trump has a clear path to re-election.
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