2020 election: Biden widens lead over Trump, stretching national edge to 13 points

Former Vice President Joe Biden has widened his lead over Donald Trump, opening up a 13-point national lead as the president struggles to manage two crises.

Forty-eight per cent of those polled said they would vote for Mr Biden, with just 35 per cent expressing support for Mr Trump, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey released Tuesday. The only national poll giving the former VP a bigger lead is a CNN survey conducted 2-5 June, which showed Mr Biden leading nationally by 14 points.

The Reuters/Ipsos survey was conducted 10-16 June, meaning it provides a fuller picture of Mr Trump's continued unwillingness to address racial tensions and his staunchly pro-police stance since the killing of George Floyd, a black man, under the knee of a white officer in Minneapolis.

A CNBC poll conducted 10-12 June showed Mr Biden leading by 10 points coast-to-coast, with a RealClearPolitics-tabulated average of nine polls giving the challenger an 8.4-point lead.

In the Reuters-Ipsos survey, 55 per cent of those polled said they disapprove of MR Trump's handling of the coronavirus outbreak compared to 40 per cent who approve. Covid-19 has killed at least 117,000 people in the US and infected at least 2.1m.

Mr Trump's approval rating plummeted to 38 per cent, his lower mark since November; at that time, House Democrats were in the midst of their impeachment proceedings against the president.

The president's actions to seemingly always act to please his conservative base appears to be costing him more moderate Republican voters. His approval rating among all GOP voters has fallen by 13 per cent – but that does not mean those dissatisfied Republican voters will automatically vote for Mr Biden or simply stay home on 3 November.

The president, during a speech on policing reforms on Tuesday, was sure to work in a pitch about the economy, which has shown some signs of bouncing back from the Covid-19 outbreak as states have started to reopen.

"We're getting very close to the level we were before the pandemic and before all of the things that you've seen happen happened," he said of US stock market values. "That's a great thing because, ultimately, it's about jobs, it's about, the government can never do anything like a great job for a person, where they look forward to getting up in the morning and going to work, and getting a much bigger check than they could ever get otherwise.

"Unless my formula is tampered with, we will soon be in a stronger position than we were before the plague came in from China," he added. "When the numbers reach the point that I know they will, there will again be a great unity and a great spirit in our country. People will have their job back that they might've lost. They'll be making even more money than they did before. ... We did it once and we're very easily doing it again.

Despite a recession triggered by the pandemic and national lock down, handling the economy still remains a positive for Mr Trump: 43 per cent of those in the new poll say he would do a better job overseeing the economy than Mr Biden (38 per cent).