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Hillary Clinton Comeback In New Polls: After Donald Trump Surge, Clinton Lead Climbs In Multiple Weekend Surveys

By Jonathan Vankin
Published on: 08:56 PST, Jul 17, 2016

Hillary Clinton has staged a comeback in presidential polls this weekend to solidify her nationwide lead over Republican Donald Trump after several state polls showed Trump appearing to close the gap on Clinton earlier in the week. The Clinton comeback takes hold on the eve of the Republican National Convention which opens Monday in Cleveland, and which Trump hopes will give him a “bump” in the polls.

Three new nationwide polls released Sunday show Clinton with firm, even commanding leads ranging from four percentage points to, in one survey, seven points in head-to-head matchups against Trump.

When third-party candidates Jill Stein of the Green Party and Gary Johnson of the Libertarian party are included in the polls, the results show little if any difference in Clinton’s lead over Trump.

On Wednesday, July 13, Quinnipiac University released a series of polls taken in key swing states — that is, states in which neither Democrats or Republicans have historically held a significant advantage — showing Trump pulling ahead, and numbers for Hillary Clinton taking an alarming dip.

The reasons for Clinton’s slump were not entirely clear, but could be related to the racial unrest following the Dallas sniper slayings of five police officers, which may benefit the self-proclaimed “law and order” campaign of Donald Trump.

The FBI decision not to bring charges against Hillary Clinton in the controversy over her use of a private email server, coupled with FBI Director James Comey’s sharp criticism of Clinton over the email affair, may have also helped boost Trump while eroding Clinton’s poll numbers.

For an expert analysis of the swing state polls, see the following CBS News video.

But polls often fluctuate, and by the end of the week, Clinton had firmly regained the momentum in polling that she appeared to be losing just days before. In fact, Clinton has held a steady lead over Trump throughout 2016, and Trump has not polled above 43 percent nationally in the Huffington Post Pollster.com average since December of last year.

On Friday, the Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll showed Hillary Clinton leading by a 12.5 percentage point margin among likely voters, 45.3 to 32.8, with 14.5 percent saying they would vote for a different candidate and 7.4 percent either refusing to answer or claiming they planned not to vote at all.

Also on Friday, NBC News, in collaboration with the Wall Street Journal and Marist College, released a new set of swing state polls showing Clinton holding clear leads of between six and nine points in four key states — Florida, Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia — in head to head competition against Donald Trump.

When Stein and Johnson were included in the swing state polls, Hillary Clinton still held her solid leads, with each of the four states showing only a two-point drop in her margin.

Finally, on Sunday, NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist, ABC News/Washington Post, and CNN/ORC all released new nationwide polls pitting Clinton against Trump.

According to NBC, Clinton holds a five-point national lead, while ABC/WaPo has her ahead by four points — but CNN put Clinton at seven points ahead of Trump.

When Stein and Johnson were included in the polls, the Clinton lead actually increased by a point according to NBC/WSJ/Marist, while its stayed the same in the ABC/WaPo poll and dropped by two points according to CNN/ORC.

MORE ELECTION COVERAGE FROM THE INQUISITR:

Only a Rasmussen poll, which came out on Thursday and, in puzzling fashion, showed Trump with a seven point lead, kept the average Hillary Clinton margin in check. According to Pollster.com, Clinton now leads Trump by an average of 3.5 percentage points.

The election forecasting model created by FiveThirtyEight.com founder Nate Silver gives Hillary Clinton a 3.7 point lead over Donald Trump and projects her with a 65.3 percent chance of winning the presidency, based on the polling results only.

[Photo By Yana Paskova/Getty Images]

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