Yes, it’s only June, and opinion polls can turn on a dime when a candidate makes one slip of the tongue or underperforms in a debate, but early polls can also show trends that later prove to have been harbingers of what is yet to come.
Having said that, three new polls have been released today, and they all show just how badly the past two weeks of controversy have been for Donald Trump’s national numbers.
Retuers/Ipsos shows Clinton leading Trump by eight percentage points, 42 to 34. That is one of the largest leads yet for the former Secretary of State in the Reuters poll.
Rasmussen, which many believe skews to the right and favors Republican candidates, is showing Clinton with a four point lead, 42-38.
And even the Fox News poll, which carries the stigma of having been conducted by the notoriously biased network, has Clinton sporting a three point lead over the Orange Menace, 42-39.
But perhaps the worst news for Trump and the GOP lies beyond the headline numbers of the horserace: Trump’s approval rating is going down fast while Clinton’s begins to rise. As FiveThirtyEight notes:
“Trump has trailed Hillary Clinton in every national poll for roughly the last three weeks. He’s led in only three of 34 polls since knocking Ted Cruz and John Kasich from the race in early May. In fact, the only two pollsters who had Trump ahead and have released a more recent poll (Fox News and Rasmussen Reports) now show him trailing by 3 and 4 percentage points, respectively.
“One big reason Trump is trailing — by an average of 4 to 6 percentage points, depending on which aggregator you use — is because, despite all the bluster, he isn’t doing any better than Romney did among white voters. According to Cohn’s estimate, based on pre-election surveys, Romney beat President Obama by 17 percentage points among white voters. To win, Trump would need to improve on Romney’s margin by a minimum of 5 percentage points if the electorate looked exactly the same as it did in 2012 and every other racial group voted in the same manner as it did in 2012.”
Additionally, the polls show that only 17 percent of voters say they will vote for a candidate outside of their party, meaning that the Bernie Sanders contingent is minimal. In fact, the data shows that those who will switch parties, the majority are to be found among the Republican electorate, another sobering statistic for Trump and the GOP.
Once again, it bears repeating: It’s only June. But these numbers do posit some interesting trends to keep an eye on as November draws closer.
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