2016 Presidential Polls: After Withstanding The FBI’s Big Hit To Her Campaign, Hillary Clinton Poised To Take Big Lead Over Donald Trump

The 2016 presidential polls are looking very good for Hillary Clinton, who appears to have weathered what likely will be the worst week in her campaign and is poised to take a commanding lead against Donald Trump.

Just after the Fourth of July holiday, FBI Director James Comey delivered what should have been great news to the Clinton campaign — that the FBI would not be recommending charges against Clinton for her unauthorized use of a private email server during her time as secretary of State.

But in his announcement, Comey took Clinton to task for what he referred to as a potentially dangerous breach of protocol, the New York Times noted.

“In saying that it was ‘possible’ that hostile foreign governments had gained access to Mrs. Clinton’s personal account, Mr. Comey noted that she used her mobile device extensively while traveling outside the United States, including trips “in the territory of sophisticated adversaries.”

Though she avoided charges that likely would have sunk her campaign, the stinging report was seen as a major blow to Clinton’s White House hopes, and many expected Donald Trump to seize on the moment and surge in the 2016 presidential polls.

But instead Trump fumbled his chance. After initially attacking Clinton using many of Comey’s exact words, Trump later drew controversy to himself by appearing to praise Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein at a campaign stop that same day.

Instead of taking a big jump in the 2016 presidential polls, Donald Trump has only taken a small chunk of Hillary Clinton’s lead. Pollster, which aggregates all presidential polls and keeps a constantly updated snapshot of the race, found that her lead dropped from close to seven points before the FBI’s announcement to close to three today.

Hillary Clinton has also maintained her lead in the battleground states, a new set of polls from NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist found. The polls showed Clinton ahead in Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia. Those states plus the more safe Democratic states she is likely to win would be enough to give Clinton a victory in November.

And Hillary Clinton’s lead in the 2016 presidential polls may be poised to grow even more. This upcoming week will see Donald Trump take center stage at the Republican National Convention, though it appears to be far from a rousing affair for Trump or Republicans.

There are indications that the still very strong sentiment against Trump could be on display, with the party having to squelch some last-minute attempts to block Trump’s nomination. With many high-profile Republicans skipping out — and opting not to speak in favor of Trump — some believe what was supposed to be a high point for Trump’s campaign could end up hurting him.

Republican convention staffers scrambling to remove Jim Crow-like ‘white elevators’ signs https://t.co/tGyaStt9mN pic.twitter.com/Zmb8w76s3C

— Raw Story (@RawStory) July 16, 2016

Here's a full list of the 2016 Republican convention speakers https://t.co/cmOlPg65fG | AP Photo pic.twitter.com/JVnJwehcrT

— POLITICO (@politico) July 15, 2016

The convention will also have a nearly all-white slate of speakers, which Los Angeles Times columnist Melissa Batchelor Warnke noted would hurt the Republican Party and its efforts to reach out to more diverse voter demographics.

“Four years ago, then-House Speaker John A. Boehner said that Mitt Romney’s low levels of support among black and Latino voters was problematic. ‘If we’re going to be a national party, we’ve got to reach out, and that means showing up in their neighborhoods. It’s a tall order, but it can be done,’ he said.”

Hillary Clinton, by contrast, will have some of the biggest names in the Democratic Party stumping for her at her convention. While Clinton herself suffers low popularity among voters, she will have the help of some very popular surrogates, including Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and both Barack and Michelle Obama.

The end result will likely be a jump in the 2016 presidential polls for Hillary Clinton, and a period of just a few months for Donald Trump to figure out how to right his ship and cut into Clinton’s lead.

[Photo by David Calvert/Getty Images]