Democratic nominee for president Hillary Clinton continues to hold a slight lead over her GOP rival Donald Trump with 44 percent of the electorate compared with his 40 percent, according to the Breitbart News Network/Gravis Marketing poll conducted on Sept. 20 of 1,560 likely voters.
“Our results are virtually the same as in our poll taken Sept. 7 and Sept. 8, where Clinton led Trump 43 percent to Trump’s 40 percent,” said Doug Kaplan, the managing partner of Gravis Marketing, the Florida-based polling firm that executed the poll. The poll carries a margin of error of 2.5 percent with a 95 percent level of confidence.
“It’s like voters have settled down from the conventions and everything else and are really waiting for the first presidential debate,” Kaplan said.
Clinton and Trump were followed by Libertarian Gary Johnson with 5 percent and Green Party nominee Dr. Jill Stein with 2 percent, he said.
“There is still a chance for Johnson or Stein to play the spoiler in some tight state races, but the overwhelming force of the ‘binary choice’ between Clinton and Trump will continue to squeeze support from Johnson and Stein,” Kaplan said.
“One key example of how deadlocked the electorate is right now is President Barack Obama’s approval rating,” he added.
“Thirty-five percent strongly approve and 36 percent strongly disapprove of Obama’s job performance,” Kaplan said. “Fourteen percent approve and 13 percent disapprove, combining the strongly’s with the approve’s and disapprove’s, you have 49 percent in favor of the job the president is doing and 49 percent not in favor of the job the president is doing.”
Broken down by ethnic groups, Clinton leads Trump with African-Americans at 81 percent, compared to his 12 percent, and she leads with Hispanics with 50 percent to his 33 percent.
Trump is the leader with Asian-Americans with 49 percent to her 38 percent, and he leads the former first lady with whites — 49 percent to her 33 percent.
Among the respondents, only 29 percent said the country was going in the right direction, compared with 50 percent saying the country is going in the wrong direction.
Fifty-four percent of respondents said America’s position in the world was weaker than it was 10 years ago, 17 percent said it was the same and 28 percent said America is stronger.
When asked, “How would you describe how the American economy is working for you and your family?” 30 percent said it is working well. Thirty-four percent said it is working OK, and 33 percent said it is not working.
Democratic pollster Patrick Caddell told Breitbart News many voters supporting Clinton actually have a very light commitment to her, because, he argued, their attitudes and values line up more closely with Trump voters.
Caddell said another sign of weak loyalty to Clinton is the high number of Clinton supporters who said they were “unsure” about an issue. “Really what that means is that the voters does not want to tell you what they really think.”
During an appearance on Breitbart News Daily on Friday morning on SiriusXM Patriot Channel 125 with host and Washington Political Editor for Breitbart News Matthew Boyle, Caddell added that Trump is leading among the most enthusiastic portion of the electorate.
“What’s most interesting in the poll, to start with, is that, while Clinton has the lead, among those voters who are most likely, who say they always vote and are highly interested, Trump has the lead,” Caddell tells Breitbart’s Boyle.
“That is, again, about enthusiasm I suspect, and about turnout,” he adds.
More results from the poll will be released soon.
LISTEN TO PAT CADDELL ON BREITBART NEWS DAILY
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