Using Brandwatch Qriously, we surveyed 3,179 American adults, basing the above results on the 1,998 who say they are likely to vote in November’s election. (If you’re interested, we have more details on our methodology at the end of this bulletin).

Joe Biden leads by five points with 46% of likely voters supporting him, while Donald Trump took 41% of the group. This comes after both parties’ conventions formally nominated each candidate.

Meanwhile 10% of likely voters are still undecided – enough to push the election one way or the other.

There is still a long way to go with many factors at play. Our polling also looks at how voting preference is split across race, gender, and age lines. We’ll be looking at this in more detail in future bulletins.

For now, let’s turn to the issues our likely voters consider the most important.

What issues could sway the election?

Elections are not won on candidates alone. The issues they put at the front of their agendas, and how they aim to deal with them, play an integral role in gaining support from voters.

In our polling, we gave our respondents a list of issues and asked them to pick up to three that they considered important. Here’s what our likely voters chose.

Covid-19, racism, and economic growth are the top three issues people chose as important. The societal context around this election – a global pandemic, the ensuing economic fallout, and months of protests nationwide – will not remain in the background.

Biden and Trump have little choice but to shape their campaigns around these conditions. With little room to push other issues where they are strongest into the spotlight, they must instead position themselves within what’s happening on the ground.

Biden will say that current efforts to contain the pandemic within the United States have failed, and he’s already stated that, if elected, he’ll take a science-first approach to tackling Covid-19.

When it comes to race relations, Biden has taken position carefully (with some gaffes in the not-so-distant past). He’s denounced rioting, looting, and all violence, but has recognized systemic racism and the need for peaceful protest. This is consistent with Biden’s more “centered” approach as he tries to appeal to moderates after elements of his party have moved further to the left since his days as vice president.

Trump is relying heavily on his touted past success with the economy, and is trying to paint himself as the law and order candidate.

An area to keep an eye on from both candidates is college football. With some major conferences postponing their seasons due to Covid-19, Biden and Trump are seeing this as an opportunity to create an angle to appeal to voters.

What’s also important is how the issues are split over party lines. We found stark differences between those voting for Biden and those voting for Trump.

Here are the five most important issues for Biden voters (the percentage in brackets shows the proportion of Biden voters saying an issue is in their top three for importance):

• Covid-19 (51%)
• Racism/race relations (49%)
• Healthcare (30%)
• Ethics in government (21%)
• Poverty/inequality (20%)

And here are the five most important issues for Trump voters (the percentage in brackets shows the proportion of Trump voters saying an issue is in their top three for importance):

• Economic growth/jobs (44%)
• Covid-19 (26%)
• Immigration (24%)
• National security (24%)
• Ethics in government (21%)

Covid-19 is far less of an issue for Trump supporters than those who say they’ll vote for Biden, and vice versa for economic growth. Trump has made a lot of noise about his success with the latter, but the virus has obviously hit the economy hard.

In addition to Covid-19, one other issue makes the top five for both sets of voters: ethics in government. “Drain the swamp,” referring to getting rid of corruption, was a rallying cry of Trump’s 2016 campaign. Since then, though, Trump himself has faced accusations of corruption.

Do both sets of voters see “ethics in government” in the same way? In theory, yes – but it’s possible people will only see an ethical violation if it’s their least favorite candidate who’s doing it.

Conventions struggle to grab attention

With the party conventions recently ending, we wanted to find out how much attention people paid to them and what influence they may have had on voting preference.

We asked our respondents about both the Democratic National Convention (DNC) and the Republican National Convention (RNC), starting off with how much of it they actually followed.

A big chunk of people practically ignored both conventions. That said, 60% followed at least some of the DNC, while it was 57% for the RNC. That’s still plenty of people to be influenced and swayed by fine speeches and rousing performances.

Speaking of speakers, we used BuzzSumo to find out whose convention speeches garnered the most coverage. We found that women led the way, with Michelle Obama picking up the most headlines (458), followed by Kamala Harris (419) and Melania Trump (321).

But do conventions really influence how people will vote, or do they simply preach to the converted?

While the conventions had no effect on most voters, for 20% of them the conventions helped them make a decision. We found that 13% of voters who followed the conventions would now vote Trump, versus just 7% for Biden.

It is not a huge gap, but it’s a win for Trump nonetheless – at least for the time being. Despite Trump’s effective RNC performance, though, Biden is still in the lead according to our tracker above.

The question is, can either candidate hold on to and build on these new supporters throughout the campaign?

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Methodology

Brandwatch Qriously uses river sampling and delivers market research questions to respondents via ads on mobile device apps. The proportion of respondents recruited in a particular app is determined by the demographic of its users, which allows for the collection of representative samples. There are no incentives meaning participants are more likely to provide candid and accurate responses. Qriously has successfully predicted nine major elections. It offers an accurate, fast, and reliable way to conduct market research, even within hard-to-reach groups and countries.

About the poll: 3,179 adults aged 18+ nationwide were surveyed from August 27 to August 31 2020. The size of the subsample of likely voters was 1,998. Data was weighted to be nationally representative in terms of age, gender, education, race, geographical region (census division), and NCHS urban/rural community type, using data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. The margin of error at the 95% confidence level, taking into account the effect of weighting, is +/- 2.2 percentage points for estimates from the full sample. For the subsample of likely voters it is +/- 2.7 percentage points. Sampling error can be larger for subsets of these samples. In addition to sampling error, all polls are subject to a range of other potential sources of error. When percentages do not sum to 100% this is due to the effect of rounding. Detailed tables and raw data will be published here later this week.