Clinton trending up
Positive poll numbers kept coming in today for Clinton as she expanded leads in battleground states and nationally. Further, her Real Clear Politics polling average lead is now up to 3.1 points and trending upwards. Before Monday’s first of three presidential debates her RCP polling average lead was just 1.8 – and falling.
In a Fox News national poll released today, taken since the debate, Clinton came out ahead by 3 percentage points over Republican Trump, 43-40, with Libertarian Gary Johnson getting 8 percent and the Green Party’s Jill Stein 4 percent. Head to head with Trump, Clinton was up by 5 points, 49 to 44.
Battleground state polls released today conducted since the debate saw Clinton up in crucial Florida by 4 points over Trump (from pollster Mason-Dixon), in Nevada by 6 points (Suffolk), in Michigan by 7 (the Detroit News poll) and in New Hampshire also by 7 points (WBUR/MassINC).
Trump: Newsweek scandal
Trump is up by 5 points over Clinton in the L.A. Times/’USC tracking poll released today. That poll, however, is consistently well-off the national averages in Trump’s favor and Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight notes that a large part of the reason is “the poll surveys the same panel of roughly 3,000 people over and over instead of recruiting new respondents.”
Today Trump had to deal with questions surrounding a story published yesterday in Newsweek claiming Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts (now called Trump Entertainment Inc.) conducted a business venture into Cuba in 1998, violating the embargo. While he denied he ever conducted business there, the Newsweek story included documents that seemed to prove he did.
The final two presidential debates take place Oct. 9 and 19; Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Mike Pence face-off in the only V.P. candidate debate next Tuesday, Oct. 4.
