Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Fla. poll: Clinton leads Trump, who's not believed about birther controversy

MIAMI — Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump by 5 points in the newest Florida poll of likely voters, the latest in a series of topsy-turvy surveys that show the race shifting left, right and center by the day.

Monmouth University’s survey showing Clinton up 46-41 percent over Trump comes a day after a New York Times/Siena College poll that had the race essentially tied at 41-40 percent in Clinton’s favor in a four-way contest that included the Libertarian and Green party candidates.


The Times/Siena poll had a larger sample, 867 likely voters, compared to Monmouth’s 400 sample that has an error-margin of 4.9 points.

Both polls also showed Sen. Marco Rubio ahead of Democratic U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, with Monmouth’s survey showing the Republican’s lead at a narrow 2 points. And the surveys showed that Clinton leads with non-white voters, while Trump is ahead with whites.

Monmouth’s poll, however, does indicate the race has tightened. Last month, she led by 9 points. The new poll also indicates that voters don’t believe Trump when it comes to his longstanding crusade to question President Obama’s status as a natural-born citizen qualified to be president.

“Although Clinton’s lead is smaller than in our last poll, she is maintaining her advantage in Florida given the ominous state of her poll standing last week,” Patrick Murray, the Monmouth University Polling Institute’s director, said.

“Florida has become less of a crucial battleground now that the campaigns’ attention has turned to the Rust Belt,” he said. “However, a win here would make the path to 270 electoral votes that much easier for the victor and difficult for the loser.”

Monmouth’s poll shows that three quarters of voters said they heard that Trump finally admitted that Obama was born in the United States. However, only 24 percent think Trump believes that Obama is a natural-born citizen; 54 percent said Trump made the admission for political expediency.

Though Trump tried to implicate Clinton in the birther controversy, 47 percent said that they didn’t believe she had a role in it; 35 percent believe she did — and nearly all were Trump supporters.

For the overwhelming majority of voters, 76 percent, the birther issue won’t affect their vote; but 18 percent said it would make them less likely to support Trump and 4 percent said it would make them more likely to favor his candidacy.

Trump tried to say that he has now ended the issue by way of his admission, but Democrats aren’t letting it go. They see the issue as paying two dividends for Clinton in the race: undercutting perceptions of Trump’s honesty and juicing turnout among African-Americans upset that Trump crusaded for years to de-legitimize the first black president.

“If Trump wanted to put an end to his role in the birther controversy with his statement on Friday, it does not seem to have had the intended effect,” Murray said.

Read the complete results of the Monmouth University Polling Insitute Florida poll here: http://bit.ly/2ckfol1

UPDATED at 2:15 p.m. to include link to Monmouth University Polling Insitute Florida poll results.

