Fox News Poll: Biden-Trump tossup in Ohio, 82 percent approve of DeWine

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A Fox News Poll of Ohio registered voters finds Democrat Joe Biden narrowly tops President Donald Trump in the race for the White House.  At the same time, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine enjoys sky-high, bipartisan approval.

Biden is ahead of Trump by a 45 to 43 percent margin.  The former vice president’s 2-point edge is within the poll’s margin of sampling error.

Voters extremely interested in the election go for Biden by 6 points (51-45 percent).

More Democrats (61 percent) than Republicans (55 percent) are extremely interested in the election.

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Some of Biden’s best groups include voters under age 45 (+15 points) and suburban women (+14).

Groups most likely to back Trump include voters ages 65 and over (+11 points), rural whites (+33), and white evangelical Christians (+48).

About 7 in 10 Biden supporters (70 percent) and Trump supporters (67 percent) are extremely motivated to vote in November.

Overall, 75 percent think the economy is in bad shape and 66 percent are concerned about personally catching coronavirus.

Ohio voters trust Biden to do a better job than Trump on race relations by 13 points and coronavirus by 6 points, while Trump is trusted more on the economy by 11 points and immigration by 4.

One in seven Republicans trust Biden over Trump on race relations and one in ten Republicans trust Biden on coronavirus

Trump won Ohio by 8 percentage points in 2016.  The new poll finds 50 percent of voters approve of the job he is doing as president, while 48 percent disapprove.

Fully 82 percent of Ohio voters approve of DeWine’s job performance as governor.  Even more impressive, equal numbers of Democrats (83 percent) and Republicans (81 percent) approve.

A bare majority of 51 percent agrees with how DeWine is handling Ohio’s reopening. Twenty-eight percent think he is opening things too quickly, while 17 percent say he is going too slowly.

Democrats split over how DeWine is reopening Ohio’s economy. Forty-six percent think he is moving at about the right pace and 42 percent say he is moving too quickly.

In early May, DeWine reversed a mask mandate for Ohio stores and instead “strongly recommends” customers wear a mask.  Most Ohio voters, 78 percent, view people who wear masks positively, and 65 percent feel it is important for the president to set an example and wear a mask in public.

“The contrast between the governor and the president is instructive,” says Daron Shaw, Republican pollster who conducts the Fox News Poll with Democrat Chris Anderson.

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“If Trump had responded to the coronavirus outbreak more along the lines of DeWine, he might have emerged as unbeatable in Ohio and a slew of other battlegrounds.”

By a 2-point margin, Ohio voters have a positive view of Biden (49 favorable, 47 unfavorable).

By a 3-point margin, they have a negative opinion of Trump (48 favorable, 51 unfavorable).  That’s an improvement since his 2016 victory. At that time, he was underwater with Ohio voters by 16 points (41 favorable, 57 unfavorable).

Pollpourri

Sixteen percent of Ohioans report typically voting by absentee or mail-in ballot.  For 2020, about double that number, 31 percent, would prefer to vote by mail, including 44 percent of Democrats and 20 percent of Republicans.   In response to coronavirus, Ohio allowed all residents to vote by mail in April’s primary elections.

Conducted May 30-June 2, 2020 under the joint direction of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company (R), this Fox News Poll includes interviews with 803 Ohio voters, randomly selected from a state voter file, who spoke with live interviewers on landlines and cellphones. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points for all registered voters.