A new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll finds that Hillary Clinton still has a six-point lead over Donald Trump, although he is steadily cutting into Hillary Clinton’s once-massive lead.
The poll taken between September 16 and 19 of likely voters with a margin of error of 3.23 percent finds respondents pulling for Clinton over Trump at 43 percent to 37 percent. The Libertarian and Green Party candidates pull a combined 12 percent while about 8 percent said they were undecided, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Hillary Clinton was viewed negatively by a majority of voters with respondents particularly worried over her lack of honesty. Of those voting for Trump, for instance, 41 percent said they were actually voting for Trump while 51 percent said their vote for Trump was really a vote against Clinton.
Top concerns respondents had about Hillary were her foreign policy decisions and her email scandal, with 36 percent saying they had concerns about her dealings with Syria, Iraq, and Libya, while 29 percent worried about her illegal use of a private email server when she was Obama’s Secretary of State. Only 9 percent felt her attacks on Trump supporters was a problem, while a smaller 8 percent were concerned over her health scares.
Clinton was also seen as the “status quo” candidate, and a flagging of enthusiasm for her was seen among African-American voters and younger voters.
Younger voters seemed less interested in the election than the other age groups, the poll discovered. “Asked to rate their interest in the election on a scale of 1 to 10,” the report said, “only half the voters under 35 ranked their interest as a 9 or 10. Overall, 68% of all registered voters ranked their interest that high.”
The poll also found Trump with high negatives, though, with 35 percent saying they were worried he didn’t have the temperament to be president, while 27 percent worried that his comments about Muslims and other minorities were too harsh. Another 13 percent worried about his seeming support of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin.
Trump is also losing to Clinton 42 to 37 percent among college-educated white voters, a block that is usually more supportive of Republicans, the report said.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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