2020 election poll shows most voters still trust Trump over Biden on handling the economy

Former VP promising economic 'transformation' as president promises a pre-coronavirus rebound

Despite record unemployment and a coronavirus-triggered recession, more voters still trust Donald Trump with the US economy more than Joe Biden, according to a poll released Wednesday.

Forty-four per cent of voters surveyed by Morning Consult and POLITICO say they trust the president's economic stewardship compared to the former vice president, who is now the presumptive Democratic nominee. Mr Biden won the support of 41 per cent of those polled on handling the economy.

Within that top line result are some reasons for the Trump campaign to feel heartened.

Political strategists on both sides of the party divide say independent voters in six to eight battleground states will help decide who occupies the Oval Office come January 2021. Among that group, more (42 per cent) trust Mr Trump to handle economic issues than Mr Biden (31 per cent).

Another key group, senior citizens, also prefer Trump's handling of the economy. Among those polled over 65 years of age, exactly half would prefer the incumbent to Mr Biden's 41 per cent.

But the former VP and longtime Delaware senator leads on the economy among two other key voting blocs: women and young adults.

Women would prefer Mr Biden by 43 per cent to 39 per cent, while all of those polled between the ages of 18 and 34 also want Mr Biden to oversee the economy by a wider margin: 44 per cent to Mr Biden's 33 per cent.

Mr Trump's re-election message has morphed during the Covid-19 outbreak into one built on the health of the economy before the national lockdown and allegations that the Obama administration possibly broke the law with an alleged scheme to end his 2016 presidential bid then cripple his presidency.

But Mr Biden is pushing more than just an economic rebound once the coronavirus fades. The former VP recently has been using the language of his party's far left, promising a "transformation" of the economy, if he wins.

Eager to get the economy back on track ahead of Election Day, Mr Trump took action on Tuesday via an executive order aiming to terminate or suspend some federal regulations to help businesses.

The order instructed "federal agencies to use any and all authority to waive, suspend, and eliminate unnecessary regulations that impede economic recovery. And we want to leave it that way. We want to leave it that way. In some cases, we won't be able to, but in other cases, we will," the president said during a Tuesday Cabinet meeting at the White House.

"And you've heard me say many times: I've said, and I've said it very strongly, that regulations, we've done more regulation-cutting than any president in history, whether they're there for four years, eight years, or, in one case, more," he said of his predecessors.

"We've cut far more regulations by a factor of a lot than any other administration," he said without offering precise data, "any other presidency. So that's really something.