Trump-Clinton Neck-and-Neck
Hillary Clinton holds just a 3-point lead over Republican front-runner Donald Trump in a national head to head matchup, according to a George Washington University Battleground Poll.
Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, has 46 percent compared to Trump’s 43 percent, a more narrow margin than other polls have found.
In the RealClearPolitics average of polls, Clinton has a larger 8-point lead over Trump, 48.8 to 40.8 percent. Fellow Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders has a 15.3-point lead over the Republican front-runner, 53.3 to 38 percent.
A poll this far out from November doesn’t tell us much, but if Trump is the GOP nominee, I think the vote will probably be closer than most people think. A lot of people really cannot stand Hillary Clinton. I talked to a man the other day who voted twice for Obama, but says he will not vote for Hillary under any circumstances. “She’s a crook,” he said. Doesn’t mean he’ll vote Republican, but I was struck by the strength of his anti-Hillary conviction.
Michael Brendan Dougherty reminds us that Trump is a lousy candidate who probably can’t win in November. I think that’s the safer bet, but then again, pundits have been consistently wrong about Trump. Remember how Ted Cruz was going to steal this thing away from Trump after Wisconsin?
My Twitter feed is as jammed as a salmon stream at spawning time with Republican types reminding each other with #NeverTrump tweets that the Donald is a monster. And yet, look at the polls: Trump is way ahead in Indiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and California. Unless Kasich drops out, which he’s not going to do, Trump might run the table. Pennsylvania, Maryland, and three other states in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic region — all Trump-friendly — vote tomorrow. Indiana’s the week after that. California’s not till the very end (June 7), but it’s got 172 delegates. (The remainder of the GOP primary schedule is here.) The NYT explains how Trump could win the GOP nomination outright.
If I were laying money on the November winner today, I would put it on Hillary, simply because Trump is so volatile. But that is far from a sure bet.
Subscribe for as little as $5/mo to start commenting on Rod’s blog.