Trump closing gap on Clinton, new poll shows
Pew Research Center survey of registered voters gives Democrat 41% and her GOP rival 37%, if elections were held today
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s lead over her Republican rival Donald Trump has narrowed to four points, a new poll shows.
According to the Pew Research Center, if the US presidential elections were held today, 41 percent of registered voters would support Clinton and 37% would vote for Trump. The two fringe candidates, the Libertarian party’s Gary Johnson and Green Party hopeful Jill Stein, would pull in 10% and 4% respectively, the survey found.
According to the new poll, Clinton still scores strongly among women voters, holding a 19% lead over Trump (49% to 30%). She also massively outperforms Trump among the non-white electorate, with a lead of 24% among Hispanics (50% to 26%) and 83% percent among black voters (85% to 2%). Trump even trails behind Johnson and Stein among black voters, with both drawing 4% support.
Clinton had pulled away significantly from Trump following the two parties’ national conventions last month, during which the candidates formally accepted the nomination to run for president. But her former nationwide lead of almost 8% has now shrunk to 6%, according to the Real Clear Politics website, which tracks national and state polls from a series of sources, including Reuters, Bloomberg, Rasmussen and the Economist.
Pew’s poll in June showed Clinton with a 9% lead, putting her at 45% and Trump at 36%. That survey had Johnson at 11%, closer to the 15% required to qualify for the three upcoming presidential debates.
The Pew survey of 1,567 registered voters was conducted between August 9 and 16, with a margin of error of 2.8%.
Earlier this week, Trump brought in a new campaign chief executive, Breitbart News’s Stephen Bannon, and a campaign manager, pollster Kellyanne Conway, following a disastrous stretch in which the billionaire committed a series of errors and fell behind Clinton in both national and battleground state preference polls.
AP contributed to this report
