Clinton leads Trump by 5 in new national poll

Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump by 5 percentage points nationally, according to the results of a Quinnipiac University poll released Friday.

Clinton tops Trump with 45 percent to his 40 percent support among likely voters. Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson has 6 percent support, followed by Green Party candidate Jill Stein at 3 percent support. Four percent of likely voters surveyed are still undecided.


In a head-to-head matchup, Clinton’s lead slightly increases to 6 percentage points, 50 percent to 44 percent with 5 percent undecided.

Clinton’s lead is a moderate improvement from Quinnipiac’s Sept. 26 survey, which showed her leading Trump by just 1 percentage point in a four-person race ahead of the first presidential debate.

According to Friday’s poll, Trump has a double-digit lead among men (49 percent to 37 percent) and white voters (51 percent to 38 percent). But Clinton holds a 20-point advantage among women (53 percent to 33 percent) — a margin more than doubled among non-white voters (63 percent to 18 percent).

Independent voters have also swung Clinton’s way in wake of the debate. What was last month a 7-point advantage for Trump is now a 14-point lead for Clinton (46 percent to 32 percent).

“Post-debate, Hillary Clinton checks all the boxes. With her base of women and nonwhite voters now solidly behind her and independent voters moving into her column, Donald Trump gets a wake-up call,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University poll. “The Indies are leaving in droves. Can Trump make a come-back in Sunday’s debate or will Clinton score another W?”

Trump’s poor standing among women and minorities can likely be attributed to his offensive rhetoric to both voting blocs. Following the first presidential debate, the Republican presidential nominee spent the next few days continuing to launch assaults on former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, a woman who Clinton noted at the debate was ridiculed by Trump with nicknames like “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping.”

Trump has also painted grim views of impoverished, uneducated African-Americans who at any time can get shot just for leaving their homes and famously slammed Mexican immigrants as “rapists” when he launched his campaign last year, pledging to build a border wall that Mexico will pay for.

The national survey of 1,064 likely voters was conducted Oct. 5-6 via landlines and cellphones. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.