Clinton leads in two polls
Two new polls continue to show Hillary Clinton leading the presidential race against Donald Trump, although the surveys differ on the size of her margin.
Clinton holds a 12-point lead, 51 per cent to 39 per cent, in the latest Washington POST/ABC News poll, which shows roughly two in three Americans saying the wealthy businessman is not qualified to be president. That includes roughly one-third of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents in the survey.
An NBC/WALL Street Journal survey, also released yesterday, showed a close contest. That poll showed virtually the same level of support for Trump as the POST/ABC survey, but a lower level of support for Clinton. It showed the former secretary of state leading 46 per cent to 41 per cent.
An average of all recent polls shows Clinton leading 46 per cent to 39 per cent.
Trump wins about two-thirds of those who want to see a different direction, the POST/ABC poll found. That level of desire for change, however, is almost identical to what the same poll found in 1988 and 2004, both years in which the incumbent party won.
Both surveys showed Trump doing poorly among non-white voters. The POST/ABC survey found more than two-thirds of voters saying that Trump made racist comments about federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is presiding over a fraud lawsuit against Trump University.
Trump leads among white voters, but with a sharp division along educational lines. Among whites with a college degree, Clinton led 50 per cent to 42 per cent, according to the Post/ ABC poll.
Both surveys were conducted by telephone on June 23. Each questioned about 1000 people – all registered voters in the case of the NBC/WSJ survey, adults aged 18 and older for the POST/ABC poll. Each has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points in either direction for the full sample.