Two weeks before Election Day, an 800-pound gorilla is following Donald Trump around on the president’s frenzied campaign trail.
The beast’s name is Covid-19, and it’s the biggest single reason why Trump’s reelection chances appear to be draining away. But not the only reason.
Trump trails Joe Biden by 9 points overall — 41% to 50% — in the latest poll from the New York Times and Siena College, released Tuesday.
Even worse for Trump, he “does not hold an edge on any of the most pressing issues at stake in the election, leaving him with little room for a political recovery,” the Times says, adding that it would take “a calamitous misstep” by Biden to lose such a robust lead in so short a time.
Even on the economy, where voters have given the president high marks for most of his term, he’s now in a 50-50 tie with Biden.
“On all other subjects tested in the poll, voters preferred Mr. Biden over Mr. Trump by modest or wide margins,” the Times says.
That includes handling the coronavirus pandemic, where Biden is favored by 12 points.
Voters are “unpersuaded by Mr. Trump’s insistence, in defiance of public facts, that the coronavirus is receding as a problem,” the Times says.
“Among voters over 65, a bloc that has drifted away from Mr. Trump, the difference was even starker,” with 56% fearing the worst of the pandemic is yet to come.
Trump claims that “people” — apparently meaning supporters at his rallies — “are tired of covid.” Yet, characteristically, he can’t make himself stop talking about it.
And as columnist James Hohmann writes in the Washington Post, “most Americans remain quite worried about getting [Covid-19] and disapprove of the president’s handling of the crisis.”
On Tuesday, the Johns Hopkins Covid-19 Tracker showed the number of U.S. cases approaching 8.25 million, with more than 220,000 deaths.
The Times poll found that Trump retains support among white men and less-educated white voters. But Biden “is on track to win with the overwhelming support of women, people of color and whites with college degrees.”
The poll found that women voters favor Biden by 23 percentage points over Trump; younger voters (18-29) by 28 points, and non-white voters by 44 points.
On the issues, more than half of all voters surveyed support a new $2 trillion economic stimulus package; a public health insurance option; Biden’s plan to mitigate climate change; a federal requirement for masks to slow the spread of Covid-19; and the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).
