A Fox News poll released on Thursday showed President Donald Trump trailing the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden by 12 percentage points nationwide.
Fifty percent of respondents said that they would vote for Biden if the election were held today, while 38 percent said they would vote for Trump.
Biden seems to have made inroads with a number of key voting blocs. Among African Americans, the former vice president has an enormous, 79-point advantage over Trump. Voters under the age of 30 back Biden by a 37-point margin. The Democrat is also dominant in suburban areas, where he has a 22-point advantage over Trump. Notably, voters aged 65 and older back Biden by a 10-point margin.
Trump appears to have lost ground among a number of voters groups he decisively won in 2016, when he ran against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Four years ago, Trump won white evangelicals by 64 points. His advantage has been reduced to 41 points versus Biden. Similarly, in 2016, the president won rural areas by 27 points. Now, he has a nine-point advantage.
Independent voters prefer Biden over Trump by a 22-point margin. However, 43 percent of independents said that they are either undecided or plan on voting for someone else in November.
According to pollster Daron Shaw, the president needs to expand his base in order to win.
“Trump needs to expand beyond traditional Republican groups and cut Biden’s support among independents. The best news in the poll for the Trump campaign is a significant percentage of independents saying they haven’t decided or are considering a third-party option.”
The poll also found that Biden is generally better liked than Trump. Fifty-three percent of respondents said that they hold a favorable view of the former vice president, while 44 percent said the opposite. Trump is viewed favorably by 43 percent of Americans, while 56 percent view him unfavorably.
According to the survey, Trump supporters are driven by enthusiasm, while Biden supporters are driven by fear.
Only 31 percent of the former vice president’s backers said that enthusiasm is why they plan on voting for him, while 63 percent said that fear that Trump might win is the reason they support Biden.
For 62 percent of Trump supporters, enthusiasm is the motivation. Only 33 percent plan on voting for Trump out of fear that Biden could win the 2020 presidential election .
“Negative emotions like fear, anxiety, and anger, can be powerful motivators for political participation. The lack of enthusiasm for Biden, however, does create an opening for Trump to define him as out of touch and not up to the task,” Shaw explained.