Biden up 50-42 over Trump in New Hampshire: poll

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Biden takes lead over Trump in national poll

Wall Street Journal associate editor John Bussey breaks down the numbers and what they could mean for the presidential election.

A new general election survey in the battleground state of New Hampshire indicates Joe Biden with a single-digit lead over President Trump if the November election was held right now.

The former vice president and presumptive Democratic nominee tops the GOP incumbent in the White House by a 50-42 percent margin among registered voters in the Granite State, according to a Saint Anselm College Survey Center poll released Wednesday evening.

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While New Hampshire’s known for traditionally holding the first primary in the race for the White House, it’s also quadrennially an important swing state in the general election. Four years ago, Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton edged Trump by less than 3,000 votes to capture the state’s four electoral votes.

According to the poll, Biden enjoys an enormous 26 percentage point lead among women, while Trump holds an 11 point lead among men. There’s also a wide educational divide, with Trump far ahead among voters with a two-year associate degree or less, and Biden with a large advantage among those with college, graduate school and professional school degrees.

As expected, there’s a massive partisan divide, with Republicans overwhelming supporting Trump and Democrats overwhelmingly backing Biden. The former vice president holds a 20 point lead among undeclared, or independent, voters.

The president’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic appears to be doing him no favors in New Hampshire. Only 42 percent of those questioned approved of the job Trump was doing handling the federal response to the outbreak, with 58 percent disapproving.

“This tracks very closely with his overall favorability (42%/58%) and job approval (43%/57%), suggesting that his leadership style continues to be highly polarizing,” New Hampshire Institute of Politics Executive Director Neil Levesque said.

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By comparison, the Granite State overwhelmingly (82 percent) approved of how Republican Gov. Chris Sununu is handling the coronavirus crisis.

“The epidemic will have an impact on this fall’s election, as 82% of voters say that leadership during this crisis will be an important factor in determining their votes,” Levesque said.

The Saint Anselm College Survey Center poll was conducted April 23 to 27, with 820 registered voters in New Hampshire questioned by live telephone operators. The survey’s overall sampling error is plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.