Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s lead over Republican opponent Donald Trump in Pennsylvania has shrunk to single digits after reaching 11 percentage points following the Democratic National Convention, according to a new poll released on Thursday.
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The former secretary of state was viewed as unpopular by 56 percent of the voters, while 63 percent hold a negative view of the NY businessman.
Trump, of course, has always been the more unpopular of the two presidential nominees, and he remains so; 35 percent of Americans have a favorable impression of him, compared with 63 percent unfavorable. Donald is running for president as an expert deal maker, but the polls are showing that it is Hillary Clinton who is closing the deal with American voters.
Clinton had flirted with running a more robust campaign in Arizona, where an influx of Hispanic voters who vote overwhelmingly Democratic has given the party hope in recent elections.
Clinton’s image has been on a downward trajectory since her tenure as a highly popular secretary of state ended in 2013, and the decline continued through the primary campaign. The numbers for Trump were 28 percent and 20 percent, respectively.
The main driver for both candidates to go negative is weakness – their own, and their opponent’s. Looking at all registered voters, Clinton leads Trump 41 percent to 38 percent in the Keystone State.
Clinton’s favorability has suffered a steep decline from her post-convention bounce. In fact, the most pro-Hillary poll included in the average, which shows her up by 10, is now a week old. According to an analysis by NBC News and Advertising Analytics, Clinton has spent $75 million on ads in the general election, compared to Trump’s $7.7 million.
The F&M poll’s margin of error is +/- 4.6 percentage points and +/- 5.6 percentage points for the likely voters.
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Still, Clinton has come out ahead in virtually every poll since the end of July, with just two national polls listed on RealClearPolitics showing Trump ahead in either a head-to-head or a four-way matchup.
