Major tracking poll tracking views before and after Friday announcement of new inquiry shows little effect on contentious race
WASHINGTON – Democrat Hillary Clinton maintained her lead over Republican Donald Trump in their race for the White House, even in the wake of renewed scrutiny of her use of a private email server, a poll showed Monday.
Barely a week from the election, the NBC News/SurveyMonkey weekly poll showed Clinton’s six-point national lead was essentially unchanged since last week.
FBI Director James Comey’s announcement on Friday of the recent discovery of emails that could be “pertinent” to the agency’s investigation of Clinton’s use of a private email server while she served as secretary of state had little impact on voters, the October 24-30 online poll found.
Results of the week’s tracking poll showed that, in a four-way race including two “third-party” candidates, Clinton is supported by 47 percent of likely voters while Trump maintains 41% support.
According to NBC News, the poll “showed Clinton with a 6-point lead over Trump in the days prior to the Comey news. When looking at the data for Saturday and Sunday only, her lead remained the same” — 47% to 41%.
Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson dropped a single percentage point to 6% support, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein had 3% support.
In a race with just the major party candidates, Clinton has a seven-point lead over Trump, with 51% in favor compared with his 44%, in the final stretch ahead of the November 8 election.
The national poll does not necessarily indicate the result on election day, as American presidential races are state-based, with 48 of the 50 states granting all their Electoral College votes to the winning candidate in that state. But it does suggest Trump faces an uphill battle in his hopes of upsetting pollsters’ expectations.
The latest poll included questions about Comey’s announcement on Saturday and Sunday.
The poll showed likely voters were split on whether they thought the FBI announcement it was an important issue to discuss — 55% — or more of a distraction to the campaign — 44%.
For independent voters who do not lean toward either party, 68% said it was an important issue, while 31% said it was a distraction.
The poll was conducted among 40,816 people considered likely voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus one percentage point.
As reported by The Times of Israel