After saying it would not endorse Donald Trump in this year’s election, the Dallas Morning News editorial board went one step further on Wednesday, backing the Democratic presidential nominee for the first time in more than 75 years.
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But the certainty of her electoral college edge has decreased dramatically.
Clinton’s lead in the electoral college is much more comfortable. That’s 26 fewer than the 270 she will need to win. It is now 274, putting it just over what Trump would need to become the next American president.
A sizable number of military and veteran voters say they would not be confident in Clinton or Trump’s ability to be an effective commander-in-chief of the nation’s military – but a slight majority would be confident in Trump (53 percent).
There is only one serious candidate on the presidential ballot in November.
The poll results identify 10 states as being toss-ups this year: Wisconsin, Florida, Colorado, Michigan, Arizona, Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi and Ohio.
The national polls are striking, even with Trump drawing closer to Clinton in recent weeks. But the one way to put the race in reach for Trump, she said, “is to assume that it’s out of reach”. The Real Clear Politics average of polls still indicate that Clinton is leading by more than three points in a head-to-head matchup against her Republican opponent.
Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton by 19 points – 55 percent to 36 percent – among voters who are now serving or have previously served in the US military, according to the latest NBC News|SurveyMonkey Weekly Election Tracking Poll.
While Trump has often complained that USA forces are not large enough or well-equipped, he’s also said that he’d save money by cutting waste and ensuring that contractors aren’t getting sweetheart deals due to their connections or lobbying efforts. Whites who do not hold college degrees support Trump by an nearly 3-to-1 margin (68% to 24%) while whites who do have college degrees split 49% for Clinton to 36% for Trump and 11% for Johnson.
Trump tops Clinton 45% to 43% in the new survey, with Libertarian Gary Johnson standing at 7% among likely voters in this poll and the Green Party’s Jill Stein at just 2%.
Trump has some convincing to do on foreign policy.
Trump’s score on this question has increased by just four points since he became the presumptive Republican nominee in June, suggesting he has done little since then to make himself appear more presidential.
David Yepsen, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University, said Clinton and Trump both face tests in convincing voters that they are up to the task.
Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and her primary foe Bernie Sanders remain highly popular among key sectors of the Democratic coalition.
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Trump, the editorial board claimed, has played to voters’ xenophobia and racism, shifted on critical issues, and displayed “a unsafe lack of judgment and impulse control” with his “improvisational insults and midnight tweets”. Can he keep it up for 62 more days?
