How well did Biden do at convincing supporters that he could be President?

Hoang NguyenData Journalist
October 30, 2020, 12:00 PM GMT+0

President Donald Trump has had no issues garnering support as the Republican Party’s preferred candidate in this election. Throughout most of his campaign this year, nearly four in five (78%) Trump supporters said they were mostly voting for Trump rather than against his opponent, Joe Biden.

This wasn’t the case for Joe Biden earlier in the summer, when 62% of Biden supporters said they were mainly voting against Donald Trump, while just 35% said they were voting mainly for Joe Biden.

What once was a 27-point gap in June has diminished to a 6-point difference by October. With just a week to go until the election, nearly half of Biden supporters (46%) say they are mainly voting as an expression of support for Biden, his highest figure yet. Nevertheless, a slim majority still say they are mainly voting against Trump (52%).

See the toplines and crosstabs from this week’s Economist/YouGov Poll  

Methodology: 
The Economist survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,500 registered voters interviewed online between October 25 - 27, 2020. This sample was 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 citizens. The margin of error is approximately 3.1% for the overall sample. 

Image: Getty