Donald Trump has seen a string of favorable polls since wrapping up his primary battle with Ted Cruz and John Kasich, culminating Wednesday in a new poll that shows he has all but erased Hillary Clinton’s once large national lead.
A new Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that Trump has surged significantly in just the last week, bringing the race into a statistical tie. Clinton led in the poll by 13 points as recently as last week, but in Wednesday’s poll held onto just a one-point advantage, leading Trump 41 percent to 40 percent.
While experts warn against looking too much into national polls this far out of November, the sudden decline is a sign of concern for many Democrats.
The poll also points to deep problems for both candidates. A majority of voters said they do not trust either candidate on key issues including the U.S. economy, handling the responsibilities of the presidency, and holding themselves to a “high moral standard,” Reuters reported.
The poll came one day after another set of good news for Donald Trump. A series of Quinnipiac University polls released Tuesday showed that Trump is within striking distance of Clinton in the important swing states of Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania. Clinton held onto one-point leads in Florida and Pennsylvania while Trump led by one point in Ohio.
As Politico noted, there is still a bit of difficulty translating polls from May to November’s election. At the same point in 2012, Barack Obama trailed Mitt Romney in Florida and was up only single digits in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and ended up winning all three.
Part of Donald Trump’s bump in the polls could be attributed to his essentially wrapping up the Republican nomination, while Clinton is still facing Bernie Sanders. Trump’s opponents both dropped out last week, and some political experts said it is normal to see a boost in support as former backers of remaining candidates come on board.
“We come from different wings of the party” Paul Ryan says of Donald Trump, the goal here is to unify the party. https://t.co/skSt16fBxq
— CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) May 11, 2016
On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton has all but officially wrapped up the nomination, but Bernie Sanders has remained in the race and is still making a case to voters that he will be better suited to face off against Trump.
For months, Bernie has out-polled Hillary Clinton against Donald Trump, and often by extraordinarily large margins. pic.twitter.com/6dq8nqUsPz
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) May 11, 2016
But Trump’s strength is evident, and his voters flexed their collective muscle in an unexpected way on Tuesday, helping to tip the Democratic primary in West Virginia and showing the real estate mogul’s deep support in the state. Bernie Sanders won the primary over Hillary Clinton, but one-third of the state’s voters said they planned to back Trump in November, NBC News exit polls found.
As NBC News found, the data points to a big win for Trump in the Mountain State this November.
“In fact, 39 percent of Sanders voters said they would vote for Trump over Sanders in the fall. For Clinton, nine percent of her voters say they plan to come out for Trump in the general election.
“West Virginia has an open primary, meaning independents can vote in the Democratic contest. With the GOP nomination wrapped up, it’s possible mischievous Trump supporters sought to damage Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee, by voting for Sanders.”
It will now be a test to see if Donald Trump can maintain his lead in the polls after the initial end-of-primary bump, and to see what kind of boost Hillary Clinton receives when Bernie Sanders officially leaves the race.
[Image via Instagram /Donald Trump]
