Reuters/Ipsos Core Political Survey: General Election Tracker (09/30/2020)

Washington, DC, September 30, 2020 – In the latest Reuters/Ipsos Core Political national survey, former Vice President Joe Biden maintains his lead over President Donald Trump in the presidential election among likely voters. For the last few weeks, President Trump’s overall approval rating has remained unchanged. A large majority of Americans are troubled by the direction of the country. Many view the economy, jobs, healthcare, and coronavirus as the most important problems facing the nation.

Among likely voters, Joe Biden continues to have an advantage over Donald Trump, with a majority (51%) reporting they would vote for Biden if the election were held today, compared to 42% who would vote for Trump.

• Just three percent of likely voters say they would vote for another candidate for president, and four percent say they are unsure.
• Nine in ten Republican likely voters (89%) and Democratic likely voters (91%) say they will be supporting their parties’ respective candidate for president, unchanged from last week.

About two in five Americans approve of how President Trump is handling his job as president (42%), unchanged from last week.

• Republican registered voters overwhelmingly support the president with 88% of all Republican registered voters approving generally, and 61% reporting they strongly approve of how Trump is handling his job.
• Just one in ten Democratic registered voters approves of how Trump is doing as president (9%).

Two-thirds of Americans say the country is heading off on the wrong track (66%), while just 23% say the nation is on the right path.

• Republican registered voters maintain their more optimistic view of the nation’s direction; 51% feel the country is going in the right direction. Perceptions of Democratic registered voters put those figures in stark relief, with just six percent reporting that the nation is heading in the right direction.

Twenty-six percent of Americans say the economy and jobs are the most important problems facing the country, followed by 18% who say healthcare and 18% who volunteer other issues like coronavirus.

• Partisanship continues to influence perceptions on the main issue question. Republican registered voters say the economy and jobs (28%) are the top problems facing the country, while 22% of Democratic registered voters say the same. Democratic registered voters are more likely to be concerned with healthcare (27%), while just 11% of Republicans registered voters agree.

About the Study

These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between September 25-29, 2020 on behalf of Thomson Reuters. For this survey, a sample of 1,341 Americans age 18+ from the continental U.S., Alaska, and Hawaii were interviewed online in English. The sample includes 1,131 registered voters, 520 Democratic registered voters, 453 Republican registered voters, 120 independent registered voters and 864 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 ± 3.1 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, ± 4.9 percentage points for Democratic registered voters, ± 5.2 percentage points for Republican registered voters, ± 10.2 percentage points for independent registered voters, and ± 3.8 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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