The last time McClatchy/Marist did this polls, it was the end of March and Clinton led by almost 10 points. In a new poll out, Hillary is only leading by 3 points, which is the outer limit for the margin error.
McClatchy says her lead over Trump has shrunken dramatically and says the race is now too close to call going into the conventions:
MCCLATCHY – Hillary Clinton’s lead over Donald Trump has withered to 3 percentage points, signaling their battle for the White House has become too close to call heading into the two major-party national conventions, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll.
Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, now leads Trump by 42 to 39 percent in a head-to-head matchup. While Republicans and Democrats are solidly behind their candidates, independents are divided, 36 percent for Clinton, 33 percent for Trump – and 23 percent undecided.
Clinton does somewhat better in a four-way race, topping Trump 40 to 35 percent. Libertarian Gary Johnson has 10 percent support, while the Green Party’s Jill Stein has 5 percent.
Either way, Clinton’s support has slipped noticeably, particularly in the one-on-one matchup with Trump. It was the first time her support had dropped below 50 percent in polls going back a year.
It looks like the big thing that hurt Hillary is primarily the email scandal:
Her numbers plunged as the controversy over her private email server while secretary of state dominated political news. On July 5, the poll’s first day, FBI Director James Comey recommended that Clinton not be charged but termed her aides and her “extremely careless’’ in their handling of classified material. Two days later, Comey testified before a House of Representatives committee.
“The good news for Hillary Clinton is that despite a very rough week, she still has a narrow edge,” said Lee Miringoff, the director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion in New York, which conducted the survey. “The bad news is these issues don’t seem to be going away.”
The email furor was a favorite reason many voters gave for rejecting Clinton. “Hillary has too many scandals going on,” said Ron Pool, 43, an independent voter from San Antonio.
Helping Clinton, though, is that Trump, whom Republicans expect to nominate next week at their convention, is just as reviled.
Sixty-four percent see the business magnate unfavorably, while 60 percent view Clinton that way.
“Clinton’s a liar,” said Rebecca Davis, 36, an independent voter from Kansas City, Missouri, who’s backing Trump. But while the email controversy bothered Stephen Chen, 33, an independent from Westfield, Indiana, he can’t vote for Trump.
“I don’t think he understands how the economy works,” Chen said.
The poll vividly illustrated the stakes for both candidates at their upcoming conventions. Republicans will meet in Cleveland next week, and the following week, Democrats will gather in Philadelphia.
Here’s the lowdown on the poll:
This survey of 1,249 adults was conducted July 5-9 by The Marist Poll, sponsored and funded in partnership with McClatchy. People 18 and older residing in the contiguous United States were contacted on landline or mobile numbers and interviewed in English by telephone using live interviewers. Landline telephone numbers were randomly selected based on a list of exchanges from throughout the nation from ASDE Survey Sampler Inc. The exchanges were selected to ensure that each region was represented in proportion to its population. Respondents in the household were randomly selected by first asking for the youngest male. This landline sample was combined with respondents reached through random dialing of cellphone numbers from Survey Sampling International. After the interviews were completed, the two samples were combined and balanced to reflect the 2013 American Community Survey one-year estimates for age, gender, income, race and region.
Results are statistically significant within 2.8 percentage points. There are 1,053 registered voters. The results for this subset are statistically significant within 3.0 percentage points. The error margin was not adjusted for sample weights and increases for cross-tabulations.
Click over to read much more about the poll…
As you’ll notice if you read the full article, McClatchy explains the supporters for both candidates aren’t just being draw to their respective candidates. They are also being repelled by their dislike of the other candidate.
In other words, both candidates suck.