Overall, 54% disapprove of the way Trump is handling his job as president and 42% approve. Bush (35%), but below Barack Obama (48%), George W. Bush (49%), Bill Clinton (53%) and Ronald Reagan (54%).
Biden's net favorability rating climbed 8 points from -3 points last to +5 points among all adults. The survey also includes an oversample of residents of 15 battleground states for a total subsample of 636 adults and 569 registered voters from those states.
Trump wins out on handling the economy.
But there are large gaps between Biden and Trump voters on the importance of these issues. People of color, though, are more likely than White people to say her selection makes them more likely to back Biden (28% among people of color, 18% among whites). Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points. Though unlike those bounces, Biden merely has to hold on to those who were already in his camp before the conventions.
Biden tops Trump as better able to handle most of the issues tested in the poll: Racial inequality in the US, the coronavirus outbreak, health care and foreign policy. Just 1% of Biden backers say they would trust Trump over Biden to handle racial inequality in the US, and only 2% would trust Trump to handle the coronavirus outbreak. A new. Among the 72% of voters who say they are either extremely or very enthusiastic about voting this fall, Biden's advantage over Trump widens to 53% to 46%. But in this matchup between two septuagenarians, voters are split over which one has the stamina and sharpness to be president (48% say Trump, 46% Biden). Overall, 50% of registered voters back the Biden-Harris ticket, while 46% say they support Trump and Pence, right at the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Harris joins the ticket with a narrowly positive favorability rating (41% have a favorable view, 38% unfavorable), which is an improvement since May when 32% of Americans said they had a positive view of her and 33% a negative one. Across 15 battleground states, the survey finds Biden has the backing of 49% of registered voters, while Trump lands at 48%. The pool of battleground states in this poll includes more that Trump carried in 2016 (10) than were won by Hillary Clinton (5), reflecting the reality that the President's campaign is more on defense than offense across the states. That's in-line with the average post-convention poll indicating Biden's net favorability is up by between 5 and 10 points. Seventy percent of Biden voters say the coronavirus is critically important vs. 24% of Trump voters. It’s hard to know what to make of the split.
On the flip side, 2% of Trump voters say they would prefer Biden on the economy, and only 4% choose him on the coronavirus outbreak.
The CNN Poll was conducted by SSRS August 12 through 15 among a random national sample of 1,108 adults reached on landlines or cellphones by a live interviewer, including 987 registered voters.
Updated 0345 GMT (1145 HKT) August 24, 2020. Among Trump backers, 57% rate the economy as extremely important, while 37% of Biden voters agree. Most say he cares about people like them (53% Biden, 42% Trump), shares their values (52% Biden to 43% Trump), and is honest and trustworthy (51% Biden to 40% Trump). More voters say their choice of candidate is about Trump than say it is about Biden.