L.A. Times Tracking Poll: Trump Opens 5-Point Lead over Clinton

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has widened his lead over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times daily tracking poll to nearly 5 points. As of Sept. 14, Trump leads Clinton 46.7% to 42.0% in the poll.

That lead is Trump’s largest in the “Daybreak” poll since July 30, when his post-Republican National Convention bounce began to fade as Clinton enjoyed her own bounce after the Democratic National Convention.

Trump has now benefited from a 6.1% swing in the poll since September 11, the day Clinton appeared to lose consciousness at the 9/11 Memorial in New York, and her campaign struggled to explain why, giving new weight to fears about her health.

The day before, Clinton had struggled to explain comments that had of Trump’s supporters were a “basket of deplorables.”

The “Daybreak” poll methodology is described as follows:

The USC Dornsife/L.A. Times Presidential Election “Daybreak” Poll asks more than 400 people each day about their voting intentions. The poll is part of the Understanding America Study (UAS) at the University of Southern California’s Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research.

Each day’s poll respondents are a subset of the UAS election panel, roughly 3000 U.S. citizens who were randomly recruited from among all households in the United States. Respondents are asked three predictive questions: What is the percent chance that (1) you will vote in the presidential election? (2) you will vote for Clinton, Trump, or someone else? and (3) Clinton, Trump or someone else will win?

Wednesday’s result involved 2,550 respondents.

While Trump continues to surge in the poll, his momentum does appear to have slowed somewhat. On Tuesday, while Clinton rested from the campaign trail, the Trump campaign faced questions from the media about why running mate Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana hesitated to apply the word “deplorable” to Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.

The campaign also faced new questions about violence that broke out between Trump supporters and protesters at a rally in Asheville, North Carolina on Monday.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. His new book, See No Evil: 19 Hard Truths the Left Can’t Handle, is available from Regnery through Amazon. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.