Biden leads Trump by 8 points nationally in Quinnipiac poll

Former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Trump by 8 points nationally, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday. 

The poll shows Biden ahead of Trump, 49 percent to 41 percent among registered voters nationwide. That’s a significant lead, sitting outside the survey’s 2.7 percentage-point margin of error, albeit smaller than the 11-point lead Biden held in a similar Quinnipiac poll released last month.

The poll suggests that, despite the tumult of recent months, the matchup between Trump and Biden has changed little. Quinnipiac polls conducted in April and February showed Biden leading by similar margins. 

“The country gyrates uneasily through a killer virus, unrest in the streets, and volatile ugly divisiveness, but the presidential horserace looks now like it did back in February,” Tim Malloy, a Quinnipiac University polling analyst, said. 

Trump’s job approval remained stagnant between May and June at 42 percent. But the number of voters who disapprove of how he is handling his job in the White House continued to tick upward, this time increasing from 53 percent to 55 percent. 

There’s also widespread disapproval of Trump’s handling of protests over police brutality and racial injustice that took place outside the White House earlier this month. Sixty percent said they disapprove of how the president dealt with the demonstrations, while about 32 percent approved.

In fact, on a handful of topics — his handling of the military, health care, race relations and his response to the coronavirus — Trump’s approval is underwater, with more than half of respondents disapproving of the job he’s doing on each of those fronts. 

Only on his handling of the economy does Trump’s approval break 50 percent. Fifty-two percent said they approve, while 45 percent disapprove.

The Quinnipiac University poll surveyed 1,332 self-identified registered voters nationwide by phone from June 11-15. It has a margin of error of +/-2.7 percentage points.