As the US presidential campaign heads into the traditional post-labour Day home stretch, polls have thrown up a mixed picture of a tightening race with Donald Trump nudging ahead of Hillary Clinton in a new CNN poll even while she continues to lead in several battleground States that will ultimately decide the winner.
With exactly nine weeks to go for Election Day, Trump, after trailing behind Clinton in about every poll over the past month, managed to pull ahead of her (45 per cent to 43 per cent) in the CNN-ORC poll released on Tuesday, with libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson and Green Party’s Jill Stein way behind at 8.1 per cent and 3 per cent respectively.
But a Washington Post-SurveyMonkey survey of all 50 States pronounced that it’s a big advantage for Clinton in the presidential electoral college. As of now, Clinton is said to lead by four percentage points or more in 20 States plus the District of Columbia, adding up to 244 electoral votes, which is just 26 shy of the 270 needed to win.
In another 20 States, it’s Trump leading by at least four points, but these States add up to just 126 electoral votes. In the 10 remaining States that hold 168 electoral votes, the Post says that neither candidate has a clear lead of four points or more.
Curiously enough, the 10 toss-up States in the Post’s estimation includes at least three States that are traditionally reckoned to be Republican bastions — Texas, Arizona and Georgia. The other seven that could go either way are: Florida, North Carolina, Colorado, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio.
Although the CNN poll put Trump ahead of Clinton by 2 points nationally in a four-way race, NBC News projected that Clinton still leads by 4 per cent. A RealClearPolitics average of nine different polls over the past two weeks puts Clinton ahead by 2.4 points in a four-way race. In a head-to-head encounter, she leads Trump by 3.3 points — down from nearly 10 points a month ago.
“Overall, the results reflect Trump’s strategy of maximising support in older, whiter Midwestern states where his anti-free-trade message and appeals to national identity generally find more fertile ground,” the Post said, but noted that he struggles in States reputed for their diversity. In these States, his positions on immigration and some other issues are said to have turned off not only Democrats and independents, but many Republicans as well.
Although Trump has taken the lead for now in its latest poll, CNN reported that as many as 59 per cent of those surveyed expected Clinton to get the 270 electoral votes and win the presidency. Only 34 per cent believed Trump would triumph.
Clinton’s decline in the recent polls follows the “pay-for-play” allegations relating to Clinton Foundation donors during her tenure as Secretary of State. Her woes over using a private email server during her stewardship of the State Department are also continuing, with more emails set to be released on court directive in the coming weeks.
Despite the publicity that the two “third party candidates”, Johnson and Stein, have started getting lately, they do not appear to be anywhere close to reaching the 15 per cent threshold to qualify for inclusion in the three presidential debates, the first of which is set to be held on September 26.