Pennsylvania Primary Polls 2016: Republicans Leaning Donald Trump, Democrats Hillary Clinton — But One Of Them Could Still ‘Lose’


As the latest Pennsylvania primary polls for 2016 roll in, results are indicating comfortable wins for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in their respective Republican and Democratic races.

Pennsylvania Republican Primary Polls

Donald’s strong showing last Tuesday in New York has made it apparent that he will, at least, win the popular vote in the GOP primary. In fact, recent conversation has focused more on potential ways the 2016 Republican convention could still manage to nominate Ted Cruz despite Trump’s lead.

If Ted manages to catch up in the popular vote, it definitely won’t be in Pennsylvania. None of the polls released in the month before the primary have showed Trump with less than a 14-point advantage. That comparatively lower number is, however, the most recent. It was released by Franklin & Marshall College on Thursday.

A Pennsylvania poll with a slightly larger sample size, 837 likely voters, released the weekend before the 2016 New York primary showed an even stronger win for Trump. CBS News/YouGov called Donald coming in with 46 percent of the vote, compared to 26 percent and 23 percent respectively for Cruz and John Kasich.

latest Pennsylvania primary polls Democrat Republican Donald Trump Hillary Clinton
If the polls are correct, Donald Trump will easily win the Pennsylvania primary’s popular vote, but he still might come up short with the state’s delegates. [Photo by Steven Adams/Getty Images]
Unfortunately for Trump, those strong poll results might not necessarily mean he will walk away with more delegates in Pennsylvania. Of that state’s 71 delegates, only 17 are bound to presidential preference voting.

Known as a “loophole” primary, Pennsylvanians will be confronted with a list of potential delegates to vote for in addition to the remaining 2016 presidential candidates. Those delegates have not necessarily publicly declared which Republican hopeful they support, making it difficult to say which way they will vote at the GOP convention in July, explained the Green Papers. Other states with this type of primary — Illinois and West Virginia — list presidential preferences alongside the delegates.

Because of these rules, the public will still remain in the dark about 54 Pennsylvania delegates’ preferences — even after official polls close on Tuesday. That’s bad news for Donald, who needs just under 400 of the 733 remaining delegates to lock up the nomination before the convention, where his future is uncertain.

Pennsylvania Democratic Primary Polls

On the Democratic side, the Pennsylvania primary will be much less complicated. Although the state holds 21 super delegates whose presidential selection is also not tied to popular vote, the remaining 189 regular delegates will be proportionally allocated.

If polls prove to be accurate, the outcome of the Pennsylvania primary will be favorable to Hillary. Clinton comes out ahead of Bernie Sanders in nearly every poll released this month. She also counts public support from 18 of the state’s 21 superdelegates.

In the Franklin and Marshall poll released earlier this week, Hillary carved out a substantial 27-point lead on Bernie, with 58 percent of the vote compared to his 31 percent. That face-off had a slightly larger sample size than a poll from Monmouth University released a few days later, which showed Sanders with a much less sharp disadvantage of 13 percentage points.

A poll from Fox News released at the beginning of April had the largest sample size, 805 likely voters, of all the month’s major Pennsylvania primary data. Despite not being the most recent, it has the smallest margin of error of the bunch, and called the win for Clinton by 11 percent.

latest Pennsylvania primary polls Democrat Republican Donald Trump Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton is beating out Bernie Sanders by anywhere between 10 and 20 percent in the polls released ahead of the 2016 Pennsylvania primary. [Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]
While the Democratic Pennsylvania primary polls don’t coincide exactly, it appears Clinton will end up coming out ahead of Sanders by somewhere between a 10 to 20 percent lead. If that holds true, she’ll pick up somewhere between 113 to 132 delegates, compared to 56 to 75 for Bernie. Superdelegates aside, Hillary is at least 955 delegates away from automatic 2016 nomination, while around 1,230 stand in the way for Sanders.

Now that you’re up to date on the latest 2016 Pennsylvania primary polls, you can check out Inquisitr‘s other breakdowns for the Democratic and Republican races in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Delaware.

[Photo by John Moore/Getty Images]

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