Hillary Clinton expanded her lead over Donald Trump by five points since the first presidential debate, according to the latest national poll from Quinnipiac University.
The new poll puts Clinton ahead by six points, 50-44, among likely voters nationwide.
When third-party candidates are included, Clinton leads by five points, 45-40, with Libertarian Gary Johnson at 6 percent and Green Party candidate Jill Stein at 3 percent.
Before the presidential debate on Sept. 26, Clinton led a Quinnipiac poll by a single point, 47-46. She also had a single point lead in the four-way poll, 44-43, with Johnson at 8 percent and Stein at 2 percent.
The Quinnipiac poll was conducted via live telephone interview from Oct. 5-6 among 1,064 likely voters nationwide, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent.
TPM’s PollTracker Average shows Clinton leading Trump nationally, 44.6 to 41.7.
Stein improved? C’mon.
I was looking at the TPM tracker polls, and maybe I’m missing something, but it looks like Clinton’s average is being held down significantly by junk pollsters. They seem to be putting out a lot of polls, and I’m assuming it’s an attempt to make the race appear much closer than it is. I can’t decide whether that’s good or bad anymore.
On one hand, it’s good for keeping Democrats from getting complacent or voting stupidly, uhh, strategically. We need to stay on our toes. On the other hand, reality is reality and I don’t appreciate these people playing games with the electorate. And, more importantly, I wouldn’t mind Trump-leaning voters getting bummed out and deciding there’s no use in voting because they don’t think he can win.
I’m truly torn.
One point is statistical noise, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some Sanders-turned-Johnson voters are giving her a look now that Johnson is imploding and even Weld looks like he’s ready to jump ship. That kinda makes sense.
The TPM chart needs to be de-skewed!
Looking forward to this trend continuing in the wake of the second deba…er, town hall!