With less than 6 months until election, Trump trails Clinton by 6 points in polls
Tens of thousands have been polled over the past three months. The results are not good for Trump.
Over the past three months, as Trump and Clinton secured their grip on their party’s presidential nominations, US pollsters have been quietly surveying tens of thousands of Americans.
More than 15 different polling companies have now collectively quizzed more than 150,000 people, across 65 different polls.
The bad news for Donald Trump, and reassuring news for the rest of us?
Hillary Clinton has led in 63 of those 65 polls, and trailed in just one.
The average result in those polls? Clinton 46 per cent. Trump just 39 per cent.
A more recent average of the nearly two dozen polls published in the past month, as both became their party’s near-certain nominees, gives Clinton 45 and Trump 39.
The picture is clear. Clinton is ahead, and ahead by about 6 points.
That’s not a landslide, but it will be enough for a clear victory – one very similar to those recorded by Obama in 2008 and 2012.
Obama beat John McCain by 7 points nationally in 2008, and Mitt Romney by 5 in 2012.
It appears Donald Trump is no more disastrous a Republican candidate than those two figureheads of the party establishment, which has been vocal in its fears that Trump would be decimated in a general election.
And Clinton is not over the finish line. If no major third party candidate stands, she will need around 50 per cent of the vote. She seems to be a few points short.
Roughly one-in-six voters, or just over 15 per cent of the electorate, have refused to choice between Clinton and Trump when asked over the past three months.
Most have declared themselves undecided. The rest have chosen some other candidate or avoided committing to either.
If Trump can win over the vast majority of these voters, and win over a few of those currently swaying towards Clinton, he could be President.
But time is short. With less than 6 months until election day – or 179 days – he will have to catch Clinton by a point-per-month.
In the past three months he has barely caught her. He has consistently trailed by 6-7 points.
But earlier in the year he appeared he may lose by double-digits.
And Bernie Sanders remains in the Democratic race, corrupting Clinton’s hopes of pivoting towards the general election and assuring herself of the support of left-wing Democrats.
The betting markets continue to rate Trump’s chances of White House victory at just under 3-in-10. The latest odds, as of a few minutes ago? 29 per cent.
