Bucking the trend of recent national polls that showed Hillary Clinton pulling into a solid nationwide lead over Donald Trump, and the media consensus that his campaign just experienced Armageddon, the latest poll from ABC News and the Washington Post says the race is a statistical tie, with Clinton leading by only four points in a poll with a four-point margin of error.
Clinton’s lead is the same in a head-to-head matchup, or with independent candidates factored in. In a two-way race, ABC News/WaPo reports Clinton 50 percent, Trump 46 percent. With all four candidates in the mix, it’s Clinton 47 percent, Trump 43 percent, Libertarian Gary Johnson 5 percent, and the Green Party’s Jill Stein two percent.
The survey was conducted between October 10 and October 13, with a modest sample size for a national survey, 740 likely voters. 90 percent of respondents said they were following the presidential race very or somewhat closely, and 85 percent said they were absolutely certain to vote.
Clinton and Trump had roughly comparable percentages of voters who said they were “locked in” and would not change their minds before the election, and comparable levels of enthusiasm from their voters. As in most other surveys, both candidates are “underwater” in their favorable/unfavorable ratings, but Trump’s were worse – 43 percent to 53 percent for Clinton, 31 percent to 66 percent for Trump. They have nearly identical ratings for honesty, with 34 percent describing each of them as honest and trustworthy.
ABC/WaPo’s respondents thought Clinton won the second presidential debate by a margin of 45 percent to 32 percent.
Interestingly, the two major-party candidates are within a point or two of each other on most of the major issues – the economy, immigration, and terrorism. Clinton is more trusted to handle an international crisis (55 percent to 39 percent) and more trusted to handle ethics in government (45 percent to 37 percent). The latter result must be a great relief to the Clinton campaign, given her history, and the news currently emerging from WikiLeaks.
Clinton leads Trump by 69 percent to 22 percent on “women’s rights,” and 55 percent said Trump’s treatment of women was a legit issue in the campaign, which would seem to suggest the big negative news for him has been making an impact… but then only 35 percent of respondents said the videotape of Trump’s lewd remarks from 11 years ago made them less likely to vote for him.
A similar percentage (34 percent) said that Hillary Clinton’s mistreatment of women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual harassment and sexual assault was a relevant issue in the 2016 presidential campaign.
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