Donald Trump’s sexually aggressive comments sent his presidential campaign into a nosedive this past weekend, according to polls conducted in the 48-hour period between the release of an 11-year-old video of Trump bragging about groping women and Sunday night’s second presidential debate.

As of Wednesday afternoon, a handful of state and national polls that were in the field when The Washington Post first released the Trump video — have been released. And they almost uniformly show big gains for Hillary Clinton in the immediate aftermath of the video and the internecine bombardment from Republicans across the country announcing they wouldn’t support Trump or calling for him to be replaced on the ticket.


What’s not yet clear is whether Trump has stabilized since Sunday night, when some Republicans applauded a forceful debate performance in which he attacked Clinton relentlessly — often with questionable factual basis. There isn’t enough post-debate data in yet to draw meaningful conclusions about whether Trump has stanched the bleeding over the past 72 hours, but there will be soon.

“Has the bottom fallen out on Trump? I think we’ll know that by the end of this week,” said Democratic pollster Jefrey Pollock, who does work for the pro-Clinton super PAC Priorities USA.

But it's becoming clear that the weekend took a major toll on Trump. A Marquette Law School poll in Wisconsin — conducted last Thursday through Sunday but released on Wednesday — found Clinton’s lead over Trump increasing dramatically as the tape sunk into the public’s consciousness.

In interviews conducted on Thursday, Trump actually had a one-point lead over Clinton in a four-way matchup: 41 percent to 40 percent. But as news of the tape spread, Clinton surged: She led by 8 points in interviews on Friday, though Marquette pollster Charles Franklin stressed, “We don’t know how many on Friday heard about it before we interviewed them.”

By the weekend — the poll concluded before Sunday night’s second Clinton-Trump debate — Clinton had leapt to a staggering 19-point lead, 49 percent to 30 percent. (Overall, the poll shows Clinton leading by 4 points on the head-to-head ballot and 7 points when the third-party candidates are included.)

That wasn’t the only poll to show a Clinton bounce and a Trump slump this weekend. In interviews conducted by NBC News and The Wall Street Journal on Saturday and Sunday, Clinton led Trump by 11 points among likely voters — her largest advantage since the spring.

On Tuesday, the news organizations announced that an additional night of interviews had reduced Clinton’s lead to 9 points. Those interviews conducted only on Monday night, after Sunday night’s debate, showed Clinton ahead by 7 points — a narrower margin than over the weekend.

There isn’t a lot of post-debate data to measure if Trump has stabilized yet. But even if he has, the data that are available point to a decisive loss if the election was held today.

In Michigan, a Detroit News/WDIV-TV poll — conducted Monday and Tuesday and released late Wednesday — showed Clinton with a 14-point lead over Trump, 47 percent to 33 percent. That’s double Clinton’s lead in the same poll after the first debate.

An online poll in Ohio — conducted by Baldwin Wallace University, which has a limited track record — found Clinton ahead by 9 in a state in which Trump had led until recently. Respondents began to complete interviews for that poll minutes after the debate concluded Sunday night.

Even in reliably red Utah, a Y2 Analytics poll conducted Monday and Tuesday found Clinton and Trump tied — and only slightly ahead of independent Evan McMullin. While Trump has been underachieving compared to other Republicans in Utah since he won the nomination, other polls had showed the GOP nominee building a double-digit lead over Clinton there.

Trump did have a 5-point lead in a Monmouth University poll in Missouri, conducted mostly after the debate Sunday night. That’s an improvement from Trump’s 1-point advantage back in August.

National online polling conducted by Morning Consult for POLITICO hasn’t suggested a Trump recovery out of the debate — though it has not showed Clinton with the large leads she has enjoyed in some other public surveys. In separate one-day polls conducted Saturday (after the tape's release but before the debate) and Monday (post-debate), Clinton led Trump by 4 and 5 points, respectively.

There are more questions to be answered in the coming days: To what extent will Trump’s fall this weekend continue? Did he begin to recover out of the debate, or did the debate only reinforce the movement away from Trump that began when the tape was released?

There’s also the notion of a possible effect down-ballot. A Trump collapse could lead to a Democratic wave at the House and Senate level — with Republicans scrambling to make the case to voters that they should be elected to serve as a check and balance on the Clinton administration.

“By Monday of next week, we’ll know how long-lasting [Trump’s decline is]," said Pollock, the Democratic pollster. “Is it affecting down-ballot races? And is there any way for candidates to break free of it?”