trump clinton.JPG

Democrat Hillary Clinton (left) and Republican Donald Trump (right) are both campaigning in Michigan in the days leading up to a Nov. 8 vote.

(AP Images)

LANSING, MI -- Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has maintained a lead in Michigan, but recent polling shows that gap is shrinking.

And as polls narrow, both candidates are putting a focus on Michigan. Donald Trump held a rally in Michigan on Monday and Clinton will be here Friday. And surrogates for the candidates abound as members of each candidate's families come through this week.

A Nov. 1 poll by FOX 2 and Mitchell Research shows Clinton with a 3 percent lead over Republican nominee Donald Trump. That poll surveyed 887 likely voter and had a margin of error of +/- 3.29 percent.

The gap between Clinton and Trump in that poll is smaller than polls Emerson and the Detroit Free Press conducted in late October, each of which showed Clinton with a 7 percent lead in a four-way race with Jill Stein of the Green Party and Libertarian Gary Johnson.

So what's changed? Comparing his numbers to previous polls he'd conducted, Mitchell said support for Clinton dropped among men and women over the age of 65. In Mitchell's Nov. 1 poll Trump led 46 to 44 percent among men.

Mitchell asked a question on new emails FBI Director announced were found in an unrelated search of former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner's computer, and said responses seemed to show it was not hurting Clinton. But controversy related to Wikileaks documents and the Clinton foundation has taken a toll on her numbers in Michigan, Mitchell said.

"Clearly Clinton's problems are now taking a toll on her candidacy in Michigan and the state is now in play," Mitchell said in a press release Wednesday.

Meanwhile, a statistical analysis from analytics website FiveThirtyEight was giving Clinton an 81.2 percent chance of winning Michigan on Oct. 23. That has since declined to a 77.8 percent chance as of Thursday, Nov. 3.

In the short-term, polls look to be swinging a bit more in Trump's direction. His campaign touted the FOX 2/Mitchell Research poll in an email to reporters Wednesday.

But a long-term poll conducted regularly by the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University shows Clinton with a big lead.

The big difference between the IPPSR survey and a typical poll is that the IPPSR survey is conducted over about two months (Sept. 1 to Oct. 30) while other polls are typically conducted over a small number of days.

Ahead of Michigan's March primary, it was the longer IPPSR poll that more accurately predicted the race between Clinton and primary rival Bernie Sanders. It predicted Clinton and Sanders were "neck-and-neck," while the average of other polls showed Clinton with a 21.4 percent lead over Sanders. Sanders won Michigan's primary.