Clinton leads Trump by 11 points in new poll

With just three weeks to Election Day on November 8, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has an 11-point lead over scandal-ridden GOP rival Donald Trump, according to an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll published on Sunday.

The survey of 1,000 registered voters was conducted after the second presidential debate on October 9.

Of those polled, and in a four-way race, 48 percent said they would vote for Clinton, while 37% said Trump, with Libertarian Gary Johnson with 7% and the Green Party’s Jill Stein at 2%.

In a two-way race, Clinton beats Trump with 51% compared to his 41%.

The Democratic nominee has consistently shown a strong lead with women, and in the poll holds a 20-point lead among female voters — 55% to Trump’s 35%. Among male voters, the GOP nominee has a lead of three points, according to the NBC/WSJ poll.

Clinton also obliterates Trump with African-American (86% to 9%) and other non-white voters (76% to 16%) and those aged 18-34 (54% to 36%).

Trump has a lead of five points with independent voters (41% to 36%) and an 11% lead with white voters (51% to 40%).

Of those polled, 95% said they had watched or heard of the 2005 tape published by the Washington Post on October 7 in which Trump can be heard making vulgar remarks about women and describing what can be termed as sexual assault. Some 32% said the video disqualifies him from running for the presidency.

The survey had a margin of error of 3.1%.

Earlier Sunday, an ABC News/Washington Post poll showed Clinton leading Trump 47-43 percent among likely voters — a small change from 46-44 in a similar survey taken ahead of the first presidential debate.

The poll was taken after the October 7 release of the 2005 audio in which Trump bragged that he could get away with grabbing women’s crotches because he’s famous.

The poll showed that enthusiasm for Trump among his supporters has decreased, while the percentage of Clinton supporters who said they could change their minds has dropped.

On Saturday, Trump challenged Clinton to a drug test before their next debate on Wednesday, suggesting the Democrat was “pumped up” on performance-enhancing drugs in a stunning new twist to the brutal White House race.

The unsubstantiated attack from the Republican nominee came as the ABC poll left Clinton with a four-point lead, suggesting that Trump still holds a solid core of voters despite a week of snowballing claims of sexual misconduct that have thrown his presidential campaign into chaos.

Trump has trampled all conventions in his treatment of his opponent, vowing if elected to jail her over her email practices as secretary of state — and making “Lock Her Up” a rallying cry for his fired-up supporters.

His campaign has actively fueled right-wing conspiracy theories about Clinton’s health, seizing on her bout of pneumonia last month to suggest she is concealing a major health problem and is unfit for office.

In the latest attack, leveled without proof, Trump suggested she had taken drugs during their last debate, and called for testing ahead of their final duel Wednesday in Las Vegas.

“At the beginning of her last debate, she was all pumped up at the beginning. At the end, it was like, ‘Take me down,’ she could barely reach her car,” the 70-year-old told a rally Saturday in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

“Athletes, they make them take a drug test. I think we should take a drug test prior to the debate. Why don’t we do that?” Trump said.

The Manhattan billionaire has spent the week claiming the media and a “global elite” are working against him.

“The election is being rigged by corrupt media pushing completely false allegations and outright lies in an effort to elect her president,” he charged in New Hampshire.

Ten women have now come forward to say they were the victim of unwanted advances by the real estate mogul.

Trump’s latest accuser, 63-year-old Cathy Heller, told The Guardian that he had grabbed and kissed her against her wishes during their first and only meeting 20 years ago.

Trump denies the allegations, insisting in one of a barrage of tweets to his 12 million followers: “Nothing ever happened with any of these women. Totally made up nonsense to steal the election. Nobody has more respect for women than me!”

A confident Clinton has scaled back her campaign commitments, keeping a low profile as her rival battles the incendiary allegations, triggered by the release last week of a video of him bragging about groping women.

But the Clinton camp issued a swift response to Trump’s latest comments on the election, accusing him of seeking to erode public faith in the vote.

“This election will have record turnout, because voters see through Donald Trump’s shameful attempts to undermine an election weeks before it happens,” her campaign manager Robby Mook said in a statement.

The nation’s top elected Republican, House speaker Paul Ryan, who last week declared that he would no longer “defend” the party’s nominee, rebuked Trump over his comments questioning the validity of the election process.

“Our democracy relies on confidence in election results, and the speaker is fully confident the states will carry out this election with integrity,” said a statement issued late Saturday by Ryan’s spokeswoman AshLee Strong.

The virulence of Trump’s attacks on the Clinton camp has raised concerns about whether the real estate mogul would even acknowledge a defeat, and how his legions of supporters would react should he lose.