Polling by Boston-based Emerson College has returned from its summer hiatus, and its surveys of three key states—while confirming Hillary Clinton’s edge in the presidential race—underscore the obstacles she faces.
•She and Donald Trump are tied in Ohio at 43%, no surprise given that the state is a perennial battleground•Clinton has a slight edge in Pennsylvania, 46%-43%, giving credence to Trump’s focus on that state as a potential cornerstone to his White House bid
•Most surprising is Clinton’s relatively slim lead—45%-40%—in Michigan, which at this stage in the last two presidential campaigns had ceased to be competitive
•The three states together total 54 electoral votes; support from independents is fueling Trump in two of them •In Ohio, the Emerson poll shows him with a 13-point lead among these voters—47% to 30%—and in Pennsylvania, he leads 43%-37%
•That pattern hasn’t surfaced yet in Michigan, where the poll shows a virtual tie among independents, with Trump at 39% and Clinton at 38%•What hurts Clinton in Michigan is a poor showing among younger voters—the cohort that helped Bernie Sanders score an upset in the Democratic primary; currently in the Wolverine State’s 18-34 age group, Trump leads her 45%-33%
•In Ohio, younger voters are among her strengths; she leads Trump among them 50%-32%
•In Pennsylvania, it’s tight among this age group; she leads 42%-39%, according to the Emerson results
•“Clinton had trouble in the primaries with independents and younger voters and it looks like it is carrying over to the general,” Spencer Kimball, director of Emerson’s Washington program, said in an interview
•A national poll released today by New Jersey-based Monmouth University gives Clinton a 7-point lead, down from her 13-point advantage in a comparable survey earlier this month•In the RealClearPolitics average of recent national polls, Clinton’s lead stood at 4.4 pts as of late this afternoon
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/ar...-poll-isgl7jgb
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