The Republican National Convention is kicking off in Cleveland today, and Hillary Clinton is still holding onto her lead against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. That’s great news for Hillary Clinton despite the fact that her poll numbers haven’t really changed since the end of the 2016 primaries in the middle of June, reports CNN.
It’s been a tumultuous few weeks for Hillary Clinton and U.S. politics in general. She managed (finally) to wrangle an endorsement out of her political rival, Bernie Sanders. Nice suffered a Bastille Day attack that killed more than 80 people. Police officers have been gunned down in Florida and Texas. Donald Trump chose Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his running mate. Hillary Clinton faced continued fallout over her never-ending email scandal. Still, despite all of the turmoil, Hillary Clinton has managed to retain a lead of several points over rival Trump.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCnVvmcpCJE
According to the most recent poll, which details a four-way general election competition between Trump, Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein (Green Party candidate) and Gary Johnson of the Libertarian party, Hillary maintains a five point lead over The Donald. She comes in with 42 percent of the vote while Trump measures in at 37 percent. Jill Stein only manages to rake in five percent of the vote, which almost puts her within the poll’s margin of error.
Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump in new national poll https://t.co/v8hdiO11xd
— TIME (@TIME) July 17, 2016
While Hillary Clinton and Trump’s poll numbers have largely remained unchanged since the end of the primary election season, Libertarian Gary Johnson has seen his poll number climb four points to 13 percent.
You can check out the full details of the CNN/ORC poll outlining Hillary Clinton’s current lead here .
In most election cycles, third (and fourth) party candidates start to largely fall by the wayside by the time convention season rolls around. This year has been a bit of an anomaly, though, with Gary Johnson gaining some recent traction.
https://twitter.com/forum4equality/status/754675925334257664
Says the idiot that can’t spell “poll” correctly.
— Tim Baumgardner?? (@timmyb72) July 17, 2016
@HotlineJosh @realDonaldTrump and Clinton leads Trump in our poll by 14 points among white college women
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) July 18, 2016
One reason for the deviation from the average campaign cycle expectations could be the recent endorsement of Hillary Clinton by Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders. Clinton and Sanders fought a bitter primary campaign battle against one another, and Senator Sanders had promised to fight for every delegate through to the Democratic National Convention. His campaign strategy changed last week, however, when he finally gave in and endorsed his rival Hillary Clinton .
In Sander’s own words, he hoped that his endorsement of Clinton would lead to Democratic party unity and the defeat of Donald Trump in November.
Despite Bernie’s passionate pleas to his supporters, many have refused to vote for Hillary Clinton no matter the fallout and have instead apparently turned their support to third party candidates.
Clinton leads Trump in pre-GOP convention poll. pic.twitter.com/ZqGkYA8ezP
— Amy Fried (@ASFried) July 17, 2016
Much of the support for third-party candidates is coming from young voters, the demographic that helped Barrack Obama beat Hillary Clinton in 2008. Voters under 35 made up a large percentage of Bernie Sanders’ supporters before he endorsed Hillary.
While Hillary Clinton has struggled to get the support she wants and needs from young Americans, she definitely does better in the demographic than presumptive Republican nominee Trump. While Hillary Clinton commands 46 percent of the under 35 vote, only 21 percent of voters in the same age bracket say they support Donald Trump.
https://twitter.com/NigeriaNewsdesk/status/754697353500712960
As the Republican Nation Convention kicks off and the Democratic National Convention looms next week, both Hillary and Trump have also managed to get a bit more support from people who refused to back them during the primaries. Even though a portion of Sanders supporters still refuses to support Hillary Clinton, 79 percent now say that they are willing to vote for her in November.
Only 67 percent of non-Trump supporters said in June that they would be willing to back him up in November. Now that number is up to 74 percent.
In a hypothetical two-candidate general election, Hillary Clinton trounces Trump by seven points at 49 to 42 percent.
[Image via Joseph Sohm/Shutterstock]
