Hillary's Lead Over Trump Plummets

A new USA Today/Suffolk poll released on today, finds Hillary Clinton now lead over Donald Trump by five points, 45.6 percent to 40.4 percent. That’s less than half of the 11 percent lead Hillary had two months ago. When Libertarian Gary Johnson and the Green Party’s Jill Stein are included, Clinton’s lead drops to four points, 39 percent to 35 percent for Trump. Johnson receives 8 percent and Stein wins 3 percent.

The poll was conducted June 26-29 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.

In his analysis, David Paleologos Director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston, says the poll finds an electorate that is angry with the country’s direction and feels less safe than it did less than a decade ago:

54 percent feel less safe today than they did 5-10 years ago;
60 percent believe the country is on the wrong track.

Other interesting findings include:

91 percent of Trump voters say there’s no chance they’d vote for Clinton;
93 percent of Clinton voters say there’s no chance they’d vote for Trump;
74% to 22% of Hillary supporters are voting for her, not against Trump;
Trump’s backers are more evenly divided on their motivation – 48% are voting for him; 39% are mostly voting against her;
56 percent of likely voters support Hillary’s call for a ban on assault weapons, while 34 percent disagree;
41 percent support Trump’s temporary ban on Muslims, while 49 percent oppose it.

According to Paleologos, one of the most telling findings was among the poll’s undecided likely voters:

Clinton’s unfavorable rating within this group was 69 percent, but Trump’s unfavorable was a whopping 91 percent.

Then there are the Clinton/Trump “haters” – those likely voters who dislike both prospective nominees:

Despite their negative feelings toward both candidates, when asked to choose between the two, 26 percent chose Trump, 19 percent picked Clinton, 44 percent were undecided, and 11 percent refused a response.

A slight edge to Trump among the haters, as these voters grapple with holding their noses and picking one of them, opting for a third party option, or staying home, come November.

Hillary should be very worried. Her campaign was spending $500,000 a day on ads during the last half of June, while Trump spent nothing. Despite all of Hillary’s unanswered spending Trump was able to cut her lead in half. The Real Clear Politics Average for the Trump vs. Clinton General Election now has Hillary ahead by 4.6 percent.