Biden Holds Lead Over Trump, Support for Candidates Hardens

(Bloomberg) -- Democrat Joe Biden holds a 10-point lead over President Donald Trump two months before the Nov. 3 election, with support for each candidate getting more solid as voting day approaches, a new CBS News poll shows.

Among the survey’s findings were that four in 10 Democrats say Biden isn’t campaigning enough; half of independents agree. The top issue for voters was the economy, followed by health care, the coronavirus outbreak, and recent protests.

Biden had the backing of 52% of likely voters nationwide to Trump’s 42%, according to the Sept. 2-4 poll conducted for CBS by YouGov.

Some 87% of likely Biden voters said their support was “very strong,” compared with 82% in early August. For Trump, 84% said their support was “very strong,” up from 82%. That suggests the number of persuadable voters has diminished.

In Wisconsin, Biden held a 6 percentage-point lead over Trump, 50% to 44%. The Democrat has a 9-point lead in the state among white women, far wider than the 2-point margin Hillary Clinton had in the state in 2016 among that segment of voters.

White voters nationwide are dividing by education, with college graduates backing Biden while those without a degree lean toward Trump -- although by a smaller margin than four years ago.

The survey was based on samples of 2,493 registered voters nationwide and 1,006 in Wisconsin. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.4 points nationally, and 3.7 points in Wisconsin.

A RealClearPolitics average of recent polls, including the latest from CBS, puts Biden up 6.9 points nationally and by 4.4 points in Wisconsin.

Among the other findings:

• Regarding recent protests in U.S. cities, 49% of voters said Biden is trying to calm the situation down and 30% said he’s encouraging fighting. For Trump, 39% saw him as a calming influence and 47% said he’s encouraging fighting.
• Biden was favored 50% to 38% to do a better job handling the coronavirus outbreak. On handling the economy Trump was ahead by a point, 45% to 44%.
• Likely Trump voters worried most about economic issues (59%) if Biden were to win, with policing and protests (31%) a distant second. For Biden backers the biggest concern if Trump were to win was the coronavirus (38%) and race relations (30%). They were less worried about the economy.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.