Hillary Clinton is leading Donald Trump by just 42 percent to 40 percent, with 10 percent for libertarian Gary Johnson, according to a poll sponsored by George Washington University.
The GW Battleground poll of 1,000 registered voters was conducted by two established, partisan-affiliated firms, Lake Research Partners and The Tarrance Group. Lake works for Democratic candidates and Tarrance works for GOP candidates.
Clinton got better grades for her expected ability to handle most issues, said the poll.
According to an analysis by the Tarrance Group, “Hillary Clinton is one of the most unpopular political figures to serve as a major party nominee for President.’
At this stage of the race, when almost no paid media criticizing her has been run, she has an unfavorable image with a strong majority (55%) of voters, including holding a “strongly” unfavorable image with fully forty-eight percent (48%) of the electorate…. He is viewed unfavorably by a sizable majority (58%) of the electorate and has a “strongly” unfavorable image with a majority (50%) of voters.
Additionally, Clinton has forty-two percent (42%) support on the ballot test and only forty-seven percent of voters say they are willing to consider voting for her. For Trump, he is at forty percent (40%) support on the ballot and forty-six percent of voters indicate that they willing to consider voting for him. So, barring some major shift in how these two candidates are perceived, each candidate will spend tens of millions of dollars and thousands of hours pursuing a very narrow five or six percent of the electorate that is willing to consider them but not yet supporting them.