Donald Trump in 'near tie' with Joe Biden, new poll finds
Donald Trump has gained ground on his probable challenger in November’s presidential election and is in a “near tie” with Joe Biden, according to a new poll released on Sunday.
The Washington Post-ABC News poll put the former vice-president ahead by 49% to 47% among registered voters. In February, the same poll put the US president seven points behind.
Amid the coronavirus crisis, respondents favoured Trump on the economy and Biden on healthcare.
Reporting the poll, the Post said it “tests only national sentiment, which would translate into the popular vote, not the state-by-state competition for an electoral college majority”.
In 2016, Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the electoral college despite losing the popular vote by nearly 3m ballots.
In key swing college states, the 2020 race is tight. According to the realclearpolitics.com polling average, for example, Wisconsin is a tie and Trump is 1.3% ahead in Florida while Biden leads by around four points in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
The same site’s general election average puts Biden nearly six points ahead.
Some critics of the former vicepresident have attacked his response to the coronavirus outbreak.
“I’m chomping at the bit,” Biden told reporters on a recent video call from his Delaware home. “I wish I were still in the Senate, you know, being able to impact on some things. But I am where I am.”
And Trump is the man in the White House. On Friday, the polling guru Nate Silver said on Twitter: “Almost nothing about what Joe Biden is doing for the next few weeks is gonna matter much for November. And almost everything about what Donald Trump is doing is going to matter a lot.”
On Saturday, Trump visited Norfolk, Virginia, for the departure of a hospital ship bound for New York harbour. He also stoked an extraordinary confrontation with New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, by suggesting some sort of enforced quarantine for New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
An incredulous Cuomo said any such quarantine order would amount to a “federal declaration of war”. Trump backed off.
Biden has not yet secured the Democratic nomination for 2020 but he is well ahead of the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders in the delegate count. Amid widespread public lockdowns as the coronavirus spreads, many primaries have been delayed, leaving the race in limbo.
The Post-ABC poll put Biden 55%-39% up over Sanders among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents. The last such poll had Sanders in a healthy lead.