Fifty-five percent of likely voters surveyed said the media are biased against Donald Trump. | Getty Poll: Majority of voters believe media biased against Trump

A majority of likely voters agree: The media are biased against Donald Trump, according to a national Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday.

Fifty-five percent of likely voters surveyed said the media are biased against the Republican presidential nominee, while 42 percent said there is no media bias against the real estate mogul.


Almost 9 of 10 Republicans said that news organizations are biased against Trump, while 3 in 4 Democrats disagree with that notion. Six in 10 independents said the media are biased against the mogul.

“Donald Trump made the charge, and American likely voters agree: There IS a media bias against the GOP contender,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University poll. “But does that explain his lackluster standing with his core base?”

In the poll, Hillary Clinton leads Trump nationally among likely voters, 47 percent to 40 percent, a margin that slightly narrows in a head-to-head match-up, in which Clinton leads 50 percent to 44 percent with 6 percent undecided.

Clinton has a dominant advantage among women (55 percent to 40 percent), likely because of Trump’s disparaging rhetoric toward women captured on a 2005 video and published before the second debate. The “Access Hollywood” tape, coupled with Trump’s denial that he has actually sexually assaulted women, prompted a series of allegations claiming Trump forcibly kissed and groped a number of women over a span of decades.

Trump has apologized for his comments in the video, but its impact has been detrimental, nonetheless. Twenty-seven percent of respondents said Trump’s rhetoric in the video is a "deal-breaker," while 35 percent said it is not but is still a "big deal." An additional 35 percent dismissed it as "not a big deal."

Despite Trump’s denials, 51 percent said they believe the women who have accused Trump of sexual assault. An overwhelming 84 percent of Democrats believe the women, as do 56 percent of Republicans.

Likely voters are split on whether the allegations will affect their votes in the election, though. One-third said the allegations aren’t a big deal, 34 percent said they are a big deal but not a deal-breaker, and 28 percent said the accusations are a deal-breaker for them.

A majority of likely voters also agreed by a double-digit margin that Trump lacks the fitness and decency to be president.

“Media bias or not, Trump’s character issues have ominous implications,” Malloy said. “The consensus opinion is that Trump groped women and is neither fit nor a decent enough person to be president.”

The Quinnipiac University survey of 1,007 likely voters was conducted Oct. 17-18 via landlines and cellphones. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.