Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. (Getty)
Some of latest 2016 presidential polls show Donald Trump is gaining on Hillary Clinton as the election steams toward its final days, but other recent polls have found Clinton with a lead – and, in one case, a commanding one.
Trump is doing well in some polling that captures part of the post third debate period. Two such recent national polls (IBD and Rasmussen) show Trump with a lead, and he’s doing well in some battleground states, like Ohio, but Clinton leads in a series of others. Clinton leads in a third recent poll (Reuters) but that poll also shows Trump gaining on her with a dramatic shift in the past week. In a fourth poll (LA Times), Trump is ahead by .03, which is basically a tie.
However, an ABC News poll that came out Sunday and tracked attitudes from October 20-22 deviated sharply from the others, showing Clinton with a 12-point lead. This poll also shows, contrary to Reuters, a dramatic shift for Clinton in the past week. And a CNN poll released Monday found Clinton with a 5 point lead among likely voters and 4 point lead among registered voters (with a 3.5 percent margin for error).
Time will tell which trend solidifies as the election heads toward its final week or so.
Trump’s improvement in some recent polls comes after days of media coverage battering Trump over multiple women accusing Trump of unwanted physical contact, his lewd comments to former Access Hollywood host Billy Bush, and the third presidential debate. It also comes after a series of WikiLeaks’ releases of documents from a hack of the email account of Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta.
Some of the polls have found voters are receptive to Trump’s claims that the election is rigged and/or that the news media are biased. The polls were taken before a porn star, Jessica Drake, became the latest woman on October 22 to accuse Trump of sexual misconduct (he denies all of the allegations, and said in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania that he will sue the accusers.)
The RealClearPolitics polling average from October 12 through October 22 has Clinton with an average 5.8 lead, slightly down from the 6.1 a few days ago but still significant. When Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein are included, though, Clinton’s average lead is 5.9 percent. That polling average time frame mostly includes the time frame before the October 19 presidential debate, however.
Still, Clinton remains heavily favored by forecasting sites that use statistical and other models to predict the election. It comes down to Electoral College math. The AP studied battleground states and reported that Clinton appears headed for an Electoral College victory. The UpShot predicts Clinton will win the Electoral College, giving her a 93 percent chance to win the presidency. Fivethirtyeight predicts that Clinton has an 85.9 percent chance of winning. Predictwise has Clinton’s chances of winning at 91 percent.
The Trump campaign countered with this battleground map:
Trump campaign sends reporters this battleground map, says “those colored red are states that we can safely assume will vote for Trump.”
Some of the most recent polls – as of October 23 – are registering a shift that gives Trump something to hold onto.
Here’s what you need to know:
Recent National Polls
CNN
| CANDIDATE | VOTE |
| Trump | 49% |
| Clinton | 44% |
Clinton’s lead in this poll is the same margin as it was a week ago. It shrinks to 4 points if you consider registered, instead of likely, voters.
IBD/TIPP Tracking
| CANDIDATE | VOTE |
| Trump | 42% |
| Clinton | 40% |
Trump’s lead in the IBD/TIPP poll is within the margin of error, meaning the race is back to a virtual tie in this poll.
The poll was conducted October 16-21. The acronyms stand for Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) and TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence (TIPP), and the poll touts itself as the most accurate in recent presidential elections. Trump does best in the South, and Clinton does best in the Northeast. (Gary Johnson has his strongest performance in the Midwest).
This is one of the first national polls to capture the time frame after the third presidential debate.
Rasmussen Reports
| CANDIDATE | VOTE |
| Trump | 43% |
| Clinton | 41% |
The new Rasmussen poll is also good news for Trump, although his lead is in the margin for error, making the race a virtual tie in this poll.
The poll was conducted October 18-20, partly after the third presidential debate. A small lead among voters not affiliated with either political party is helping Trump.
ABC News/Washington Post
| CANDIDATE | VOTE |
| Clinton | 50% |
| Trump | 38% |
The ABC News/Washington Post poll measured voter attitudes from October 20-22, the period after debate three. It found that voters are upset about Trump’s questioning of the election’s legitimacy and how he treats women.
LA Times/USC
| CANDIDATE | VOTE |
| Trump | 44.4% |
| Clinton | 44.1% |
The LA Times/USC daily tracking poll measured voter attitudes on October 23. The race is a dead heat. The LA Times poll has show Trump with a stronger lead than other polling for months now, though.
Reuters/IPSO
| CANDIDATE | VOTE |
| Clinton | 44% |
| Trump | 40% |
Although the Reuters poll shows Clinton leading by 4 percentage points, just outside the poll’s credibility interval, it also represents a fairly significant improvement for Trump, who was behind by seven points in the same poll the week before. This poll surveyed people from October 17-21.
The poll also found that only half of Republicans would accept Clinton as their president with most believing the election is rigged.
Quinnipiac
| CANDIDATE | VOTE |
| Clinton | 47% |
| Trump | 40% |
Clinton does better in the Quinnipiac poll than in some other recent polls. This is a more dated than those above, however. The poll was conducted October 17-18 before the third presidential debate.
Trump’s lead with whites and men “all but vanishes” in the poll. The poll found that most voters felt the news media is biased against Trump but also believe Trump is not fit to be president.
Economist/YouGov
| CANDIDATE | VOTE |
| Clinton | 42% |
| Trump | 38% |
This poll was conducted October 15-18. That means it was before the third presidential debate.
Clinton’s lead is right at the 4 percent margin of error.
Recent Battleground Polls
Florida: Fox 13/Opinion Savvy
| CANDIDATE | VOTE |
| Clinton | 49% |
| Trump | 45% |
This is the first Florida poll since the third presidential debate, which was on October 19. It was conducted the following day. However, the margin for error is 4.2 percent, meaning Clinton’s lead is within it.
The polling results were an increase in 1 percent for Clinton from the previous poll. The poll did show Trump winning early and absentee voters. People polled thought Clinton won the third debate but by a lower margin than was seen with previous debates.
Ohio – Suffolk University
| CANDIDATE | VOTE |
| Trump | 44.8% |
| Clinton | 44.6% |
The most recent poll in this key swing state shows the race is a tie. The poll was conducted October 17 to 19, outside of the third presidential debate in part.
The last four polls in Ohio before that one showed a tie, two showed a Trump lead, and one showed a Clinton lead in the margin for error.
Pennsylvania: Emerson
| CANDIDATE | VOTE |
| Clinton | 45% |
| Trump | 41% |
Although Clinton leads in Pennsylvania, this poll is just outside of the margin of error and shows a slightly lower margin that she’s seen in other Pennsylvania polling.
The poll was conducted October 17-19. The same poll also showed Trump leading in Utah and Missouri, and Clinton leading in New Hampshire.
Virginia: Christopher Newport University
| CANDIDATE | VOTE |
| Clinton | 45% |
| Trump | 33% |
The most recent polling in Virginia shows that Clinton has broken into a large lead, although this poll’s margin was higher for Clinton than in other Virginia polls (she has led in the last four polls).
Georgia: Landmark Communications
| CANDIDATE | VOTE |
| Trump | 47% |
| Clinton | 43% |
This poll was conducted October 20 after the third presidential debate. Trump’s lead is exactly at the margin for error.
Slightly more people thought Clinton won the debate, although there was a gender gap with men saying they thought Trump won it. Clinton has been gaining somewhat in recent Georgia polling.
Read more about Donald Trump and Melania in Spanish at AhoraMismo.com:
