Reuters/Ipsos Core Political Survey: General Election Tracker (09/25/2020)

Washington, DC, September 25, 2020 –   The latest Reuters/Ipsos national survey shows that likely voters continue to prefer former Vice President Joe Biden over President Donald Trump in the presidential election. President Trump’s overall approval rating remains stable. More than half of Americans continue to be pessimistic about the direction of the country. Americans see the economy, jobs, healthcare, and coronavirus as the main issues facing the nation.

Two in five likely voters report they would vote for Donald Trump (42%), and half of likely voters would vote for Joe Biden (50%) if the election for president were held today.

• About one in ten likely voters say they would vote for another candidate altogether (4%), or they are not sure (5%) who they would vote for if the election were held today.
• Nine in ten Republican likely voters (89%) and Democratic likely voters (91%) say they will be supporting their parties’ respective candidate for president.

Forty-two percent of all Americans approve of how Donald Trump is handling his job as president.

• Republican registered voters continue to strongly approve (57%) of how Trump is handling the presidency. Overall, 87% of Republicans support the president.
• Very few Democratic registered voters approve of Trump’s job performance (9%).

A quarter of Americans say the country is heading in the right direction (25%) compared to 64% who say the country is on the wrong track.

• Republican registered voters (54%) are much more likely than the general public and Democratic registered voters (8%) to say the country is going in the right direction.

About a quarter of Americans say the economy and jobs are the most important problems facing the country (26%), followed by healthcare (19%), and other issues (16%), where respondents often volunteer coronavirus as an issue.

• Political party identification affects the main issues people report. Republican registered voters say that the economy and jobs (30%) are the top problems facing the nation followed by healthcare (13%), other issues (12%), and crime (11%). Democratic registered voters say healthcare is the main problem for the country (28%), followed by the economy and jobs (25%), and other issues (19%).

About the Study

These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between September 18-22, 2020 on behalf of Thomson Reuters. For this survey, a sample of 1,350 Americans age 18+ from the continental U.S., Alaska, and Hawaii were interviewed online in English. The sample includes 1,160 registered voters, 498 Democratic registered voters, 499 Republican registered voters, 115 independent registered voters and 823 likely voters. Weighting was then employed to balance demographics to ensure that the sample's composition reflects that of the adult population according to Census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ± 3.0 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Americans been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including, but not limited to coverage error, and measurement error. The poll also has a credibility interval of ± 3.3 percentage points for all registered voters, ± 5.0 percentage points for Democratic registered voters, ± 5.0 percentage points for Republican registered voters, ± 10.4 percentage points for independent registered voters, and ± 3.7 percentage points for likely voters. 

For more information on this news release, please contact:

Chris Jackson
Senior Vice President, US
Public Affairs
+1 202 420-2025
[email protected]

Kate Silverstein
Media Relations, US
Public Affairs
+1 718 755-8829
[email protected]

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