Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden speaks in Philadelphia, Tuesday, June 2, 2020. (Photo: AP)

WASHINGTON, June 18 (Xinhua) -- Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden leads sitting President Donald Trump by 8 points nationally, according to a new poll released on Thursday.

The poll, conduced by Quinnipiac University from June 11-15, showed Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, ahead of his Republican counterpart, Trump, 49 percent to 41 percent, among registered voters nationwide.

A similar Quinnipiac poll released in May suggested an 11-point Biden lead over Trump.

In the latest poll, Democrats went to Biden 93 - 4 percent and independents were split with Biden at 43 percent and Trump at 40 percent, while Republicans went to Trump 92 - 7 percent.

Meanwhile, 42 percent of voters approved of the job Trump was doing while 55 percent disapproved.

On Trump's handling of the economy, 52 percent of voters approved, while 45 percent disapproved.

On several other issues, including Trump's response to the coronavirus pandemic and his handling of race relations, more than half of the respondents disapproved of the job he was doing on each of those fronts.

"The country gyrates uneasily through a killer virus, unrest in the streets, and volatile ugly divisiveness, but the presidential horserace looks now like it did back in February," said Tim Malloy, a polling analyst at Quinnipiac University.

As for how satisfied people are with the way things are going in the nation today, 25 percent said they were either very or somewhat satisfied, while 71 percent said they were somewhat or very dissatisfied, according to the poll.

A total of 1,332 self-identified registered voters nationwide were surveyed with a margin of error of plus/minus 2.7 percentage points, Quinnipiac University said.