4 years ago
Most Americans believe President Donald Trump could have avoided Covid-19 infection if he had handled the pandemic better, and there is no indication yet of an outpouring of support for him, according to a new poll by Reuters/Ipsos released on Sunday.
The poll also showed that Trump’s Democratic presidential challenger Joe Biden had expanded his lead over him by 10 points. Biden widened his lead by 14 points in a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll also.
That poll was released on Sunday but conducted in the days between the first presidential debate and Trump’s hospitalisation. While three-fourths of the respondents said in the poll that the debate made no difference, 25% said they were more likely to vote for Biden now.
In the Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted on Friday and Saturday, 51% of registered voters supported Biden, and 41% backed Trump.
The poll showed that 65% respondents, 9 in 10 Democrats and 5 in 10 Republicans, held Trump responsible for getting infected. According to them, “if President Trump had taken coronavirus more seriously, he probably would not have been infected.”
In the WSJ and NBC’s poll, Biden leads the president 53% to 39%, which is the highest support the former vice-president has enjoyed in polls conducted by them in months. It also showed the president’s support slip under 40% for the first time, and that negative views of him had increased.
The poll found the debate moved the needle on Trump more than any other single significant factor such as his impeachment by the House of Representatives and acquittal by the Senate.
Biden leads Trump up by 8.1 points in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls and by 7.9 points in the FiveThirtyEight weighted average of polls.
