Fox News poll: Biden extends lead over Trump amid protests
June 18, 2020
President Donald Trump is trailing his Democratic rival Joe Biden by the widest margin this year, according to a Fox News poll released Thursday.
The poll, conducted from June 13 to 16, found 50 percent of respondents would vote for Biden, compared to 38 for Trump. That's a sharp change from last month's poll, which found 48 percent backing Biden and 40 percent backing Trump.
The poll was conducted amid weeks of protests over race and police brutality, a period where Trump attempted to establish himself as a "law and order" president and threatened federal force to quell demonstrators.
Some 61 percent of respondents disapproved of Trump's handling of race relations, compared to only 32 percent approving. Last month, those figures were at 56 percent and 37 percent respectively.
While just 18 percent of respondents said they or someone in their household participated in the protests after the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minnesota police officer, 57 percent of respondents approved of the protests, compared to 35 percent disapproval.
Antipathy toward Trump was a driving factor for many Biden voters — 63 percent said they supported Biden out of a fear of Trump being reelected, while only 31 percent said they were motivated primarily by enthusiasm for Biden. Meanwhile, 62 percent of Trump supporters said they did so out of enthusiasm for the president.
The damning figures for Trump and his campaign are likely to draw a rebuke from the president, who has disparaged pollsters that publish unflattering findings. Trump has accused Fox News of publishing "phony" polls, and the Trump campaign demanded CNN apologize for some of its findings (CNN refused).
The June Fox News poll included interviews with a random pool of 1,343 registered voters over cellphone and landline with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
Source: https://www.politico.com/
