Trump surges ahead in Fla., Pa., tied in Ohio, by Robert Romano
Don’t look now, but Donald Trump has
taken the lead in critical swing states Florida and Pennsylvania, and is tied
with Hillary Clinton in Ohio, new polling from Quinnipiac University
shows.
The poll was conducted from June 30
to July 11. In Florida, Clinton has dropped 8
points since the last poll was conducted on June 21, with a 47 percent to 39
percent lead now a 39 percent to 42 percent deficit.
The situation gets even worse for
Clinton when third party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein are included.
Then Trump leads 41 percent to 36 percent.
In Ohio, Trump and Clinton both come
in at 41 percent. But with third party candidates included, Trump leads 37
percent to 36 percent.
But the biggest shock in the poll
comes in blue collar Pennsylvania, with Trump now up 43 percent to 41 percent.
With third party candidates in
Pennsylvania, Clinton gets squashed 40 percent to 34 percent.
Ironically, Clinton appears to lose
more support to Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson than Trump does.
The poll came after Trump’s major
economic speech on international trade and against globalization delivered in Pittsburgh suburb Monessen on
June 28. Lamenting the loss of millions of
American manufacturing jobs, economic growth and production overseas, Trump
struck an ambitious theme to Pennsylvanians, a state that traditionally votes
Democrat in presidential elections.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to
declare our economic independence once again,” Trump told an enthusiastic
crowd.
To give you an idea of how important
Pennsylvania is, if Trump carries all of the states Mitt Romney won in 2012,
plus Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania — he will win 273 electoral votes and the
presidency. Forget Virginia, Colorado, Nevada and even New Hampshire. He won’t
need them.
The last time a Republican won
Pennsylvania was in 1988.
The poll was also ongoing on July 5
when FBI Director James Comey issued his
statement that the FBI is not recommending that Hillary Clinton be charged with
any crime for storing and disseminating
classified information from her private email server.
And it definitely showed up in the
poll. Trump widened his lead on honesty and trustworthiness. In Florida, he
leads Clinton 50 percent to 37 percent, up from 43 percent to 40 percent. In
Ohio, Trump leads on honesty, 47 percent to 37 percent. In Pennsylvania, 49
percent to 34 percent.
Simply put, those numbers are
devastating for Clinton, a member of the incumbent White House party. She has
been the presumptive favorite in the race to date — Trump is only given a 33 percent chance of
victory at Predictit.org as of this writing for example — but now appears suddenly weakened.
For Trump, it gives him considerable
if not surprising momentum headed into the Republican National Convention in
Cleveland, Ohio on July 18-21.
Perhaps the most surprising element
is that it appears almost 20 percent of the electorate in these critical swing
states appears to be up for grabs headed into the conventions and debates.
Meaning the heavily favored Clinton
may be in for a bigger fight than almost anyone imagined just a few months ago.
Trump, who has consistently beat analyst expectations, is already over
performing — and we’re still a little less than 4 months away from the
election. Internally, the Clinton campaign must be in a near-panic.
Robert
Romano is the senior editor of Americans for Limited Government.
No comments:
Post a Comment