The Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden at a roundtable on economic reopening with community members on June 11 in Philadelphia.
Associated Press
A new Fox News poll published Thursday found registered voters preferred the Democrat Joe Biden over President Donald Trump by a 12-point margin, 50% to 38%.
Racism, unemployment, and coronavirus concerns were top of mind for respondents.
The results also suggested that the preference for Biden over Trump among respondents had less to do with enthusiasm for Biden’s policies and more to do with a determination to cut Trump off from a second term in office.
Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
A new Fox News poll ahead of the November US election found registered voters preferred former Vice President Joe Biden over President Donald Trump by a 12-point margin, 50% to 38%.
The poll was conducted Saturday to Tuesday by the Democratic organization Beacon Research and the Republican research team Shaw & Company. Researchers conducted phone interviews with 1,343 randomly chosen registered voters across the US. The poll reported a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points for all registered voters.
It’s still early, and the presidential election itself will be decided by the Electoral College, but the results were consistent with other polls showing the presumptive Democratic nominee, Biden, with a large lead over Trump nationally.
Racism, unemployment, and coronavirus concerns were top of mind for respondents. In terms of what they viewed as a “major” threat to the stability of the country, 67% said coronavirus, another 67% said unemployment, and 64% said racism.
“Negative emotions like fear, anxiety, and anger can be powerful motivators for political participation,” said Daron Shaw, who helped conduct the poll.
The poll found Biden with much larger support than Trump among Black voters, voters under 30, voters 65 and over, women, and those living in suburban areas.
Only 35% of those who participated in the poll found that Trump respected racial minorities, while 53% said the same of Biden; 61% of participants disapproved of the way Trump was handling race relations.
Story continues
“It’s hard to believe an issue has emerged more challenging for Trump to navigate during his reelection campaign than a pandemic, but that happened with the racial reckoning prompted by George Floyd’s murder,” said Chris Anderson, the founder and president of Beacon Research.
The poll suggested that the preference for Biden over Trump among respondents had less to do with enthusiasm for Biden’s policies and more to do with a determination to cut Trump off from a second term in office.
According to the poll, 63% of Biden supporters said fear of Trump winning was their biggest motivation for the presidential vote, while 62% of Trump voters said their vote was based on enthusiasm for their candidate.
According to Anderson, this disparity created an opening for Trump to define Biden “as out of touch and not up to the task.”
Trump told Fox News last week that he would leave the White House peacefully if he lost the election to Biden in response to comments made by Biden that the military would need to escort Trump out of office.
Trump has hit back at polls that widely show him trailing behind his prospective Democratic rival. Last week, lawyers for Trump’s reelection campaign demanded that CNN retract and apologize for a poll that found Biden leading Trump by 14 points nationally.
CNN said it stood by the poll and would not apologize for or retract it.
Read the original article on Business Insider
