PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — A new USC Dornsife / Los Angeles Times Presidential Election Poll released Wednesday shows Republican nominee Donald Trump with 47% support among likely voters, and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton with 40.4% — the largest lead for the Republican thus far in the 2016 presidential race.
Trump’s lead reflects a “bounce” following the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last week, but also continues a trend that began in the weeks before, with revelations by FBI director James Comey in early July that while she would not face criminal prosecution, Clinton had been “extremely reckless” with classified information during her tenure as Secretary of State.
Trump has led throughout most of the month, with the exception of a slight Clinton lead on July 20, which was the third day of the Republican convention and followed a 48-hour news cycle focusing on plagiarism in Melania Trump’s convention speech.
Clinton may enjoy a bounce after the Democratic National Convention wraps up in Philadelphia tomorrow. Reviews of First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech on Clinton’s behalf on the first night of the convention, for example, were stellar. At the same time, there is considerable unhappiness among supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), whose delegates staged a mass walkout from the convention on Tuesday evening in protest at a “rigged” election process within the party. If Clinton cannot unify her party’s base, she may not enjoy the bounce she expects.
The new USC/L.A. Times poll corroborates new polling data from Gallup that indicates that Trump and Clinton have exactly the same favorability among American voters for the first time. 37% of Americans view both candidates favorably, while 58% view them unfavorably.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. His new book, See No Evil: 19 Hard Truths the Left Can’t Handle, is available from Regnery through Amazon. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.