Biden leads Trump by 8 points in national Quinnipiac poll

Former Vice President Joe Biden is leading President Trump by 8 points among voters nationwide, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday. 

The survey shows Biden with the support of 49 percent of voters, while Trump trails at 41 percent. The former vice president also leads Trump with key voting blocs, including independents, women and black voters, according to the poll. 

Still, the poll shows Trump with his highest approval rating since at least last fall. Forty-five percent of respondents said they approve of the job Trump is doing in office, up 4 points from 41 percent last month and 7 points from his low of 38 percent in October.

Fifty-one percent of respondents said they disapprove of Trump’s job in office, the poll found.

Biden has held the status of prohibitive front-runner in the Democratic nominating contest for more than a month, but he effectively secured his spot as the presumptive presidential nominee on Thursday after Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), his only remaining rival in the primary contest, suspended his campaign.

That means that he will almost certainly face Trump in November in what is expected to be a massively expensive and bitter general election campaign. 

One variable looming over the 2020 presidential race is the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and subsequent economic fallout that has rocked the nation in recent weeks. Trump has sought to cast himself as a “wartime president” amid the crisis after facing early criticism for his delayed response to the outbreak.

The Quinnipiac poll shows that a slight majority of Americans — 51 percent — believe that Biden would do a better job managing a crisis than Trump. Conversely, 42 percent said that Trump would do a better job handling a crisis. 

The Quinnipiac poll surveyed 2,077 self-identified registered voters by phone from April 2 to 6. It has a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points.