Biden leads Trump by 10 points nationally in new Quinnipiac poll

Former Vice President Joe Biden maintains a wide national lead over President Trump heading into the final 12-day stretch before Election Day, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released on Thursday.

The Democratic nominee has a 10-point advantage in the race, garnering the support of a slight majority of likely voters — 51 percent — while Trump lagged behind him at 41 percent, according to the latest poll. That margin is virtually identical to the lead Biden held in two Quinnipiac polls from September that showed the former vice president ahead of Trump 52 percent to 42 percent.

Biden is propelled by strong support among women, Black voters and white voters with four-year degrees, while Trump’s primary support comes from white men and white voters without college degrees.

But the poll also shows some warning signs for Trump among those demographics. White voters overall are near-evenly split between the two candidates, with 49 percent choosing Trump and 46 percent choosing Biden. In 2016, Trump carried white voters by a 20-point margin. 

Likewise, among whites without college degrees, a group that Trump won by 37 points in 2016 and makes up the core of his political base, Trump now leads Biden by only 20 points.

Biden also leads Trump by a 55 percent to 39 percent margin among seniors aged 65 and older, according to the Quinnipiac poll, offering further evidence that Trump may be in trouble with a group of voters who broke for him four years ago 52 percent to 45 percent.

There are some positive signs for Trump. Biden’s support among Hispanic voters is notably weaker than that of 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, while Trump appears to have made gains. Fifty-one percent of those voters support Biden compared to 35 percent who support Trump.

The Quinnipiac poll largely mirrors the findings of other recent national polls. Trump is currently trailing Biden by an average of 9.8 percentage points, according to the website FiveThirtyEight. 

With only 12 days to go before Election Day, Trump is running out of time to turn around his increasingly troubled reelection prospects. Polling in key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin shows Trump consistently trailing Biden, and recent polls out of red states like Texas and Georgia suggest that Trump may be in trouble there as well. 

Trump will get one of a few remaining chances to make his case to voters on the national stage on Thursday night when he and Biden meet for the second and final presidential debate of 2020. 

But the Quinnipiac poll shows that voters prefer Biden over Trump on most major issues facing the country, ranging from the coronavirus pandemic to health care to whom voters trust to nominate justices to the Supreme Court.

Even on the economy, an issue that Trump has hitched his reelection message to, the two candidates are statistically tied. Forty-eight percent of respondents said they believe Trump would do a better job handling the economy, while 47 percent prefer Biden. 

The Quinnipiac University poll surveyed 1,426 likely voters nationwide from Oct. 16-19. It has a margin of sampling error of 2.6 percentage points.