#New polls show Joe Biden widening lead over Trump

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Joe Biden and Donald Trump
AP Photo/Patrick Semansky; EPA/ERIK S. LESSER

A new pair of polls out Wednesday show Joe Biden with a widening lead over President Trump with November’s election just over 100 days away.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey found that 51 percent of voters said they would vote for the former veep if the election were held now, with 40 percent backing Trump.

Biden’s lead over the president rose to 11 percentage points from 7 percentage points last month.

But the WSJ poll also showed that 54 percent of those surveyed approved of Trump’s handling of the economy, a record high in the poll despite the economic slump caused by the deadly coronavirus pandemic.

A Quinnipiac University survey, meanwhile, showed Biden opening up his biggest lead this year over Trump.

Registered voters back Biden over Trump 52 percent to 37 percent, according to the national poll. That compares to a June 18 Q poll that had Biden ahead 49–41 percent. Since March, Biden’s lead has ranged from 8 to 11 percentage points in Q polls.

The polls also showed a drop in the commander in chief’s job approval rating.

The WSJ poll showed Trump’s overall job-approval rating dropping 3 percentage points over the last month.

Forty-two percent of voters approved of Trump’s performance, with 56 percent disapproving — his lowest job-approval rating since April 2018, the paper reported.

In the Q poll, 60 percent of voters disapproved of the job Trump was doing, while 36 percent approved, a 6 point drop in his job approval compared to last month.

In that June 18 poll, 55 percent disapproved while 42 percent approved.

The WSJ/NBC News poll surveyed 900 registered voters from July 9 through July 12, and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.

The Quinnipiac poll surveyed 1,273 self-identified registered voters nationwide from July 9 to July 13 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.