Joe Biden leads President Donald Trump in the latest Florida poll amid the COVID-19 pandemic that’s brought 2020 campaigning to a halt and the president’s response under the spotlight.

According to the University of North Florida poll, 46% of registered voters would back the former vice president if he’s the Democratic nominee, versus 40% who preferred Trump.

The poll showed 45% approve of Trump’s response to the deadly new coronavirus, while 53% disapprove.

The disease has killed at least 200 and infected more than 12,000 in Florida, a key battleground state that Trump won by less than 2% over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Gov. Ron DeSantis garnered 51% support for his handling of the crisis in the state, with 46% disapproving.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the president’s top public health advisers, received nearly double the support of the president in terms of handling the crisis, with an 85% job approval rating. Eighty-six percent of Floridians trusted Fauci and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for information on the virus, more than doubling trust in Trump, at 41%. Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed said they do not place faith in what the president says on the pandemic.

“Floridians are clear in their stance on who they trust, and it’s not their political representatives," Dr. Michael Binder, director of the university’s Public Opinion Research Lab, said in a statement. “Health organizations have the spotlight and authority to make suggestions to officials, and it would behoove politicians to follow their advice, especially as election season creeps closer.”

Lately, the president and Fauci have been divided over the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19.

The president, who helped fast-track the drug for clinical trials in New York, has suggested Americans with COVID-19 should take the drug, arguing, “What have you got to lose?” He said Sunday that the government had purchased and delivered tens of millions of the hydroxychloroquine pills to medical facilities.

Fauci has argued that there’s only anecdotal evidence the medication, which is helpful to patients with lupus, arthritis and malaria, has any positive effect on COVID-19 patients. He says more data is required before he could recommend the drug as a treatment for the virus, which has now killed 10,000 Americans and infected nearly 350,000 across the country.

Binder expressed caution on the presidential head-to-head numbers in the poll, which surveyed 3,244 voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.7 percentage points.

“First these are registered voters, not likely voters,” he said. “Second, the campaign season has screeched to a grinding halt and people are rightly less focused on politics. Although, this same sample of voters when asked who they voted for in 2016, indicated a very slight advantage for Trump, suggesting that something may be changing in Florida ahead of the election.”

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