Trump's handling of coronavirus, economy to sway Pennsylvania voters most, pollster says

President Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has not appeared to change registered voters’ overall perception of him much in Pennsylvania, a new poll shows.

A Franklin & Marshall College Poll released Thursday said 29% of registered voters think the Trump administration is doing an excellent or very good job handling the pandemic, while 57% rated the administration’s performance as below average or failing.

Trump’s approval ratings, however, have changed little since January before the first covid-19 case was diagnosed in Pennsylvania.

The poll showed 42% of registered voters had a strongly or somewhat favorable opinion of the president when asked between July 20-26, up 1 percentage point from January. It also showed 55% of voters had a strongly or somewhat unfavorable opinion of him in the July polling, also up 1 percentage point from January.

While the favorability numbers remain basically unchanged despite registered voters’ overall perception of how the administration has handled the pandemic, Franklin & Marshall professor and poll director G. Terry Madonna said, “It’s kept him from growing his support.”

The Franklin & Marshall poll shows Trump trailing former Vice President Joe Biden in Pennsylvania in his bid for reelection, 50% to 41%, with 6% of voters undecided and 2% saying they would vote for another candidate. Trump won Pennsylvania by about 44,000 votes in the 2016 election.

The poll, which surveyed 667 registered voters, had a margin of error of 5.5 percentage points.

Madonna said the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the economy through the November election will have the biggest impact on the race’s outcome. About 45% of registered voters in the July poll thought Trump was doing an excellent or very good job helping to create jobs, the same as two years ago. It is his strongest issue, Madonna said.

“What could you come up with to complain about (Trump)?” asked Bill Miller, 64, of Sharon, a poll respondent. “The economy was doing great (before the pandemic). He was doing great. He regulated a bunch of stuff. He lowered taxes. Everybody was making money.”

Miller, a former mason and warehouse worker, added: “I agree with most of the stuff he does. The Twitter stuff sometimes irritates me.”

Mary Eynon, 79, of Fox Chapel, another poll respondent, said she disagrees with most of what Trump says and does.

Eynon, a retired Bank of New York Mellon employee, said she does not think Trump has done a good job dealing with the pandemic. She pointed to remarks he made suggesting that disinfectants could perhaps be injected or ingested to fight the virus. The remarks prompted the maker of Lysol to warn that its product should never be used internally, and Trump later claimed he had been speaking sarcastically.

“Everything out of his mouth is a lie,” she said.

Biden’s campaign did not return a message.

Republican National Committee spokesperson Michael Joyce said, “I don’t put a lot of stock into any public poll that you’re seeing right now. I still trust our internal (research) a lot more than anything I see in any type of public poll anywhere.”