Former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Trump by 7 percentage points in a general election matchup, a new Hill-HarrisX poll finds.
Forty-five percent of registered voters in the July 17-20 survey said they would chose Biden if the presidential election were held today, a 2 percentage point uptick from the latest national poll conducted July 3-4.
By contrast, 38 percent of voters prefer Trump as president, 1 percentage point down from earlier this month.
Five percent of voters in the poll say they would vote for someone else while 4 percent said they do not plan to vote at all.
Nine percent of voters remain unsure.
Among Midwestern voters, a coveted demographic group for both candidates, 45 percent chose Biden while 38 percent said they’d vote for Trump if the election were held today.
The president has seen his poll numbers decline in recent months, with Biden’s lead widened as large as 15 percentage points.
The RealClear Politics average has Biden ahead by 8.4 percentage points.
“Joe Biden has had a lead for a couple months now,” Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist poll, told Hill.TV.
Miringoff cites public opinion on Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic as a key factor to Biden’s lead in national general election surveys.
“It has catapulted him into the lead and it’s what really is keeping him there for all intents and purposes right now,” he added.
A July 7-10 Hill-HarrisX poll shows 47 percent of voters believe Biden would do a better job with handling the coronavirus compared to 31 percent who say the same of Donald Trump.
While voters 65 and older are split between the two candidates in the general election matchup, half of voters in this category prefer Biden when it comes to who would handle the coronavirus pandemic better.
By contrast, 34 percent of older voters chose Trump on handling the crisis.
The Hill-HarrisX poll was conducted online among 2,829 registered voters between July 17 and 20. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.84 percentage points.
—Gabriela Schulte
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