Democrat Hillary R. Clinton leads among Empire State voters with 48 percent, compared with 34 percent for Republican nominee Donald J. Trump and 6 percent supporting Libertarian Gary Johnson and 4 percent for Green Party nominee Dr. Jill Stein, according to the Breitbart/Gravis poll conducted between Aug. 4 through Aug. 6 with 1,717 registered voters in the Empire State.
“Secretary Clinton is still enjoying the post-convention bounce, especially it this blue state that she represented in the Senate for eight years,” said Doug Kaplan, the managing partner of Gravis Marketing, the Florida-based firm that executed the poll.
However, he said, Trump is pulling 21 percent of New York Democrats and 40 percent of New York Hispanics. “These can be troubling symptoms for Clinton if Trump continues to pull support from Democrats and other communities.”
Legendary pollster Patrick Caddell told Breitbart News exclusively that Trump’s support with Hispanics shows how his candidacy is disrupting conventional wisdom and voting pattern assumptions Democrats and the campaign of Hillary R. Clinton are relying on. Caddell did not participate in the design or execution of the poll, but he reviewed the completed results as their were presented to him.
“New York may be most interesting in the insights it provides for the presidential election everywhere,” he said. In the 2012 presidential election, President Barack Obama received 89 percent of the New York Hispanic vote and votes from 95 percent of New York Democrats, according to exit polls published by The New York Times.
“It is the disruption in partisan and ideological vote that signals the continuing fluidity of this race,” he said. “If the patterns in New York are duplicated generally in the contested states, and some normally uncontested states, then the election has by no means been decided for sure.”
One group that is supposed to be adamantly opposed to the New York City developer is Hispanics.
“Trump’s performance among Hispanics in New York is, as noted, quite significant,” said Caddell, who was the pollster for President James E. “Jimmy” Carter in 1976, George McGovern in 1972, Gary Hart in 1984 and Joe Biden in 1988.
“He not only gets 37 percent of Hispanics head-to-head with Clinton, but a four-way race actually increases his support to 40 percent, he said. “Overall, Clinton’s margin with Hispanics drops from 21 percent in a two-way race to 10 points and barely 50 percent in the four-way race.”
Among white voters, Caddell said it is another story and it is white voters, who are the backbone of Clinton’s support.
“It is with the two-thirds of white New Yorkers where Clinton slightly edges Trump in both the two-way and four-way races that helps Clinton sustain her lead,” he said.
“If Trump were winning a solid majority of white New Yorkers, as he was winning whites in many other states before his August dip, along with his showing of Hispanics, conceivably Clinton’s lead could be in single digits.”
“I think this poll has some interesting indications but by no means do I think it argues that the state will flip for Trump – nor should it,” said the pollster, who is now a Fox News insider.
Caddell also pointed to how gender was playing out in the New York electorate.
“The greatest division in this race remains gender. Clinton has a two-to-one edge among female voters and a 2 percent lead among men in the head-to-head race,” he said. “In the four-way race Trump ties Clinton with men but still loses women overwhelmingly by almost the same margin.” In the 2012 election, The New York Times exit polls showed that Obama pulled in votes from 77 percent of women and 64 percent of men.
“With whites there is good reason to believe that it is Trump’s drop with men that together have characterized his August decline,” he said. “Were Trump to regain a significant lead with men, the vast losses with women, if not significantly lessened, ultimately puts a state like New York out of reach.”
Kaplan said when in the overall poll, Clinton held a lead of 53 percent compared to 36 percent for Trump. “But this is not a two-way race and if Stein and Johnson are pulling 10 percent from the poll of voters, they could put states in play.”
Caddell said the shift from the two-way race to the four-way race tell him the race has not settled.
“In the four-way race Clinton’s margin comes down a few percent as Johnson and Stein take 10 percent and another 8 percent is Other,” Caddell said.
“The defections both major candidates suffer further defections with their party with Clinton holding only 67 percent of Democrats and Trump only 58 percent of Republicans,” he said. “Part of Trump’s game comes from the nearly quarter of independents who break towards Johnson, Stein and particularly Other, which reduces Hillary’s margin over Trump to 8 percent with New York independents, 42 percent to 34 percent.”
There are also scary figures inside the poll for Trump and his support with conservatives, he said.
“Ideologically in the four-way race, the Trump defection to Clinton among conservatives remains over 22 percent, while Clinton defections of liberals to Trump are about 12 percent,” he said. ” Meanwhile, Johnson and Stein pick up around 11 percent of slightly conservatives – equal to the percentage for Other, among those very liberal a full 11 percent vote for Stein again, emphasizing the resistance to Clinton on the far left.”
Gravis Marketing is the Florida-based firm that executed the poll. The poll was conducted from Aug. 4 through Aug. 8 and has a margin of error of ±2.4 percent at a 95 percent confidence level. The total may not round to 100 percent because of rounding. The polls were conducted using automated telephone calls, IVR technology, and online responses, with the results weighted by voting demographics.
To see the polling data, click below.
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