Republican Donald Trump has drawn level with and even surpassed his White House rival Hillary Clinton as the billionaire enjoys a surge after his party’s nominating convention last week, polls showed Monday. It isn’t straightforward to measure Trump’s convention bounce because he was already gaining ground on Clinton heading into the conventions, narrowing what had been a 6- to 7-point national lead for Clinton in June into roughly a 3-point lead instead.
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The new findings mark Trump’s best showing in a CNN/ORC Poll against Clinton since September 2015. A new CNN poll has Trump leading 48%-45%, and a Morning Consult poll has Trump up 44%-40%.
As Clinton spoke, Democrats struggled with their own internal disputes after party chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned under pressure following the release of hacked Democratic National Committee emails.
As previously reported, some of the biggest moments from the 2016 RNC included Trump’s grand, rock star-style entrance and portions of Melania Trump’s speech closely resembling Michelle Obama’s 2008 speech at the Democratic National Convention, which a speechwriter later admitted to plagiarizing.
For the time being, however, Trump leads Clinton in the polls. Overall, Catholics favor Clinton to Trump 56 percent to 39 percent. But his support declined in the days immediately before the convention, and the two were tied in the poll for much of the past week. The poll also shows that Trump’s favorability is increasing (post-convention, 46% of registered voters report positive ratings of Trump compared with 39% pre-convention).
A majority (52 per cent) now say Trump is running for president for the good of the country rather than personal gain, just 44 per cent say the same about Clinton. The convention is also the one time during a campaign in which one party gets disproportionate attention to its message.
Just after the convention, 57 percent of voters say Trump has made it clear what he wants to accomplish as president, including eight in 10 Republicans. Ted Cruz’s “vote your conscience” speech lost him considerable support among Republicans. But the poll suggests a large share of Republican voters still need to be won over.
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A recent poll conducted by CNN and ORC surveyed 1,001 adults from July 22-24. The margin of error for the sample of registered voters is four points.
