Thursday’s Suffolk University poll has Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump by 7 points in Michigan, 44 to 37 percent.
The poll also included Libertarian Gary Johnson at 5 percent, and Jill Stein of the Green Party at 3 percent. Ten percent of respondents said they were undecided. As with many other polls appearing at this stage in the race, a likely-voter screen was used, rather than controlling only for registered voters.
CNN notes that Bernie Sanders won Michigan in the Democratic primary, but those voters appear to have come home to Clinton. Barack Obama won Michigan with 57 percent and 54 percent of the vote in 2008 and 2012, respectively.
“The key issue on the minds of those polled were jobs and the economy (21%), followed closely by terrorism and national security (20%) and potential Supreme Court nominees (11%),” CNN reports.
CBS News adds that Suffolk respondents said the country was on the “wrong track” by a 61-28 percent margin, a response that would theoretically favor the change candidate, Trump. Michigan voters also said they feel less safe over the past five to ten years, by a striking 10-50 percent margin, with 37 percent saying their feeling of safety was relatively unchanged.
Another metric that should, in theory, favor the Republican candidate was that 38 percent described themselves as some, or very, conservative, compared to 22 percent liberal and 33 percent moderate. Fox News was the most trusted source of information for poll respondents.
Clinton and Trump had comparable favorability ratings in the poll – 34-57 percent favorable/unfavorable for her, 33-55 percent for him. Clinton scored considerably worse on honesty (28-62 percent vs. 35-53 percent for him.)
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