Poll: Obama would be better amid coronavirus, but Trump bests Biden
April 8, 2020
Voters believe former President Barack Obama would be a better leader than President Donald Trump amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll released Wednesday.
But of 1,990 participants in the survey, a plurality said Trump would be better than former Vice President Joe Biden, the leading Democratic presidential candidate.
When asked who would be a better leader during the outbreak, 52 percent of voters said Obama would be better during the crisis, compared with 38 percent who said Trump would be the stronger of the two leaders. Ten percent did not have an opinion.
By an 8-point margin, more voters picked Trump (44 percent) as a better leader during the crisis than Biden (36 percent), though voters were split evenly in the survey when asked whom they would trust to handle the issue.
Trump and Biden briefly spoke by telephone on Monday about the federal government’s response to the outbreak — what is quickly becoming the key issue in the race for the White House.
The 2020 presidential campaign has largely come to a halt as the remaining contenders stay off the campaign trail, with Biden’s campaign largely shifting to an online platform. The former vice president has hosted town-hall meetings and news briefings from his Delaware home, often trying to counter-program Trump’s response.
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The president, meanwhile, has been hosting nationally televised daily news conferences, some of which stretch on for more than two hours, blanketing the airwaves.
But the poll shows an uptick in the percentage of voters who say the Trump administration hasn't done enough to combat the coronavirus. In the new poll, 50 percent say the administration hasn't done enough, up 7 points over the past three weeks. Only 38 percent of voters say the administration is doing the right amount, while 4 percent say it is doing too much.
The Trump administration has also been widely criticized as slow-footed in ramping up testing and facilitating the distribution of vital medical supplies to hot spots like New York and California. More than 10,000 Americans have died from complications related to the virus, and the U.S. has well more than 300,000 confirmed cases.
A majority of voters, at 54 percent, disapprove of the job Trump is doing overall as president, while 44 percent approve of Trump’s job performance.
The poll was conducted April 3-5, surveying 1,990 registered voters. The margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points.
Morning Consult is a global data intelligence company, delivering insights on what people think in real time by surveying tens of thousands across the globe every single day.
More details on the poll and its methodology can be found in these two documents: Toplines | Crosstabs
Source: https://www.politico.com/
