Is the demise of the Donald Trump movement finally beginning?
After polls taken in the wake of the Republican National Convention (RNC) showed Republican nominee Trump with a lead over Democratic party nominee Hillary Clinton, the trend now seems to have completely reversed, with a new CBS poll showing Clinton with a 7% lead over Trump, the largest she’s had in months.
The poll, conducted with a sample of 1,393 people right after the end of the Democratic Party Convention (DNC), has 46% of those questioned saying they will vote for Hillary Clinton in the election in November, with only 39% saying they will vote for Donald Trump.
The numbers are understood by many to reflect a “convention bump”, a common rise in the polls enjoyed by candidates in the immediate aftermath of their party’s convention, and such “bumps” are often transient, but some think the swing might also be due to Trump’s recent run-in with a bereaved Muslim father of a fallen US soldier. The father, Khizr Khan, spoke at the DNC, and was later mocked by Trump.
While Trump has seemed astonishingly impervious to such scandals in the past, this dramatic swing may indicate that they are finally catching up with him, though in this election cycle, one makes such predictions at his own peril.
Another worrying data point for the Trump campaign emerges from the poll, as even when “leaners”, those who haven’t decided whom to vote for but lean towards one candidate, are included, Clinton’s lead shrinks by only one percentage point, to 6%. The same gap remains when Libertarian party candidate Gary Johnson is included.
Hillary Clinton has also gained somewhat in the favorable/unfavorable ratings, as the proportion of those with favorable views toward the former First Lady and Secretery of State rose from 31% before the convention to 36% after it, while the proportion of those with unfavorable views fell from 56% to 50%. This is no rousing endorsement from the public, but in an election characterized by the confusing nomination of two of the most unpopular political candidates in US history, it’s significant.
This is especially true when viewed opposite Trump’s numbers. The Republican nominee now enjoys only a 31% favorability rating, with 52% saying they had an unfavorable view of him. These are roughly the numbers Mr. Trump had before he got his own “convention bump”.
