In a four-way race, the poll shows Clinton leading Trump 43% to 37% with Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson getting 9% and Green Party candidate Jill Stein at 3%.
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In a head-to-head between the two major party nominees, Clinton’s lead expands to 7 percentage points, 48 percent to 41 percent.
Monmouth pollster Patrick Murray notes Clinton’s increased leads in Wednesday’s polls comes after Trump, much to his own detriment, stole the spotlight back with his birther backtrack.
But the poll reveals a familiar pattern among white registered voters: Those without a college degree break for Trump, 53 percent to 35 percent, while those with college degrees tilt in Clinton’s favor, 49 percent to 43 percent.
His rival Hillary Clinton’s campaign said in a statement that Trump’s answer was proof that he had only voiced his reversal to try to change the subject.
“And I think we put that to sleep just by putting out the last report”, Trump said, apparently pointing to a campaign statement Tuesday night in which his spokesman deflected questions about the Trump Foundation and accused the Post reporter of bias. The Real Clear Politics average of polls, which now includes these new Fox News polls, has Trump ahead by a narrow margin (1.8%-2.0%) in all three states. That’s compared with 45 percent who agree with the Clinton message that the country is making progress and the economy has come back.
The bad news for Trump: Clinton leads on immigration (50% to 39%), who would make a better commander-in-chief (48% to 33%), who should be in charge of nuclear weapons (51% to 25%), terrorism and homeland security (44% to 43%), temperament to be president (56% to 23%) and being experienced enough for the White House (60% to 23%).
But Trump holds the edge on being honest and straightforward (41 percent say Trump is better here, versus 31 percent who say Clinton is).
That’s not as strong a result as Trump has been seeing in some recent polls but it is an improvement over last month. Indeed, this is the fifth-straight NBC/WSJ poll in which his job rating has been above 50 percent.
Democrats held a four-point advantage on this question a month ago.
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The poll was conducted between September 16 and 19, with 1,000 registered voters polled. In six of those nine polls, her lead was 9 percentage points or more.
