A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday shows that Trump’s attempts to shift focus from the pandemic to crime are not boosting his ratings.
The August 31-September 1 national poll shows little change of support for voters who prefer Biden over Trump, 47%-40%.
Trump has sought to blame Black Lives Matter for civil unrest and to depict Biden as soft on crime, while changing the subject from 180,000 deaths in America from the coronavirus.
The poll showed a majority of Americans concerned about the virus, 78%, with 60% saying Trump is at least partly responsible for the poor response including school and business closures.
Only about 8% of American adults listed crime as a top priority for the country, compared with 30% who said it was the economy or jobs, and 16% who said it was the healthcare system.
Also 62% of Americans, including 62% of Democrats and 65% of Republicans, said that crime is not increasing in their neighborhoods.
53% of responders remained sympathetic to those protesting for racial equality, essentially unchanged from 52% in a late July poll.
The Reuters/Ipsos public opinion poll was conducted online, in English, throughout the United States. It gathered responses from 1,335 American adults, including 551 Democrats and 523 Republicans. It has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of 3 to 5 percentage points.
See Reuters.
