Voters think Trump can handle the economy, but look to Biden for other issues

Graeme BruceBusiness Data Journalist
October 07, 2020, 4:00 PM GMT+0

America’s likely voters think President Donald Trump is better equipped than Democratic nominee Joe Biden to handle the nation’s fragile economy, but when it comes to most other issues facing the nation they’re more likely to think Biden would do a better job.

Yahoo News / YouGov data shows 46% of likely voters think Trump would better handle the economy, compared to 41% for Biden.

That is where Trump’s edge over Biden ends.

By significant margins, likely voters think Biden would do a better job handling race relations (51% vs. 32% for Trump), the coronavirus pandemic (48% vs. 39%), and immigration (49% vs. 41%) — all issues on which Trump has attracted significant criticism during his presidency.

As Senate Republicans rush to confirm Amy Coney Barrett —their pick to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg — voters are also more likely to think Biden would be better suited than Trump to handle the Supreme Court, by 46% to 40%.

The margin between the two candidates is narrower when it comes to the issues of foreign policy (47% Biden vs. 43% Trump), and crime (43% vs. 42%). The latter issue is of particular importance to Trump, who has taken great pains to bill himself as the “law and order” president.

See results from the Yahoo News/YouGov polls here

Methodology:The Yahoo News surveys were conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,202 US registered voters interviewed online from October 1-2, 2020 and October 2-3, 2020. The sample for each survey were weighted according to gender, age, race and education based on the American Community Survey, conducted by the US Bureau of the Census, as well as 2016 presidential vote, registration status, geographic region and news interest. Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel to be representative of all US registered voters. The margin of error for both surveys is 4.6%.

Image: Getty