WSJ/NBC poll results
The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll results shows Clinton up 43 percent to 37 percent among those most likely to vote in the November 8 election. That poll question included the two smaller-party candidates: Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party polled at 9 percent and Jill Stein of the Green Party captured 3 percent.
Once Johnson and Stein were removed from the equation the Democrat candidate Clinton rose to a seven point lead over the Republican Trump, 48 percent to 41 percent. The telephone poll of 1,000 respondents was conducted between September 16-19. It came before the series of weekend bombings in New York and New Jersey and each candidate’s reaction to the bombings.
The poll found Clinton’s numbers are strong on the issue of credibility with voters while Trump’s were not. Sixty percent credited the former Secretary of State with “being knowledgeable and experienced enough to handle the presidency.” For Trump, who has never held political office, only 23 percent said the same.
Clinton also had better numbers when it came to “having the right temperament to be president” (56 percent to just 23 percent for Trump). Trump out polled Clinton 41 to 31 percent on “being honest and straightforward.” However, the spread was wider in a June poll in which Trump held a 16 percent lead in that category.
Trump: birther leader
The poll was conducted after a Trump press conference last week in which he stated, after leading the ‘birther’ movement for five years, that President Barack Obama was born in the U.S., where he was in fact born. Trump did not apologize for his years of claiming otherwise, but instead falsely blamed Hillary Clinton for starting the birther movement.
The poll also followed controversial comments in Miami where Trump, again falsely, told a rally his rival would repeal their second amendment gun rights and then suggested she should be put in harm’s way.
“I think that her bodyguards should drop all weapons. They should disarm. Right?” he told the partisan crowd. “Right? I think they should disarm, immediately. What do you think? Yes? Yes, yeah. Take their guns away.
“She doesn’t want guns,” he continued. “Take their — let’s see what happens to her. Take their guns away. OK? It’ll be very dangerous.”
The previous week was a tough one for Clinton, who said half of Trump supporters were a “basket of deplorables” and became overheated at a 9/11 ceremony in New York and, stumbling, was helped into a van.
Only hours later did her campaign admit that Clinton had been diagnosed with walking pneumonia two days earlier. Her physician, Dr. Lisa Bardack said it was not a serious case and she was prescribed rest; she returned to the campaign trail four days later and has showed no signs of poor health since.
Obama job approval
Some polls are favorable to Trump, for example today’s Fox News poll shows him up by five in the battleground state of North Carolina. But yesterday a Monmouth poll had Clinton regaining a five point lead in the crucial state of Florida.
Democratic pollster Fred Yang conducted the Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff. The two say Clinton may be helped by Obama’s soaring job-approval rate, a plus7 in their poll and a whooping plus9 in another poll released today, from Gallup.
McInturff said Trump needs something to get his numbers to change if he is to win the White House. “For him to get from where he is to winning, something, some spark, something that hasn’t happened — would have to happen,” he said.
The first presidential debate goes next Monday, September 26.
