White House Watch: No Sign of Allegations Fallout Yet
Friday, October 14, 2016
At the close of a week that began with him trailing by seven points, Donald Trump still holds a slight lead over Hillary Clinton in today’s White House Watch survey despite a flurry of news reports alleging a history of sexual harassment on his part.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey of Likely U.S. Voters shows Trump with 43% support to Clinton’s 41%. That’s unchanged from yesterday. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson picks up six percent (6%) of vote, and Green Party nominee Jill Stein has two percent (2%) backing. Four percent (4%) like another candidate, and five percent (5%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
Clinton held a seven-point lead on Monday – 45% to 38% - following the airing of an 11-year-old video showing Trump making graphic sexual remarks about women. But as voters began responding to Sunday night’s debate, her lead dropped to five points on Tuesday and four points on Wednesday. Trump edged ahead yesterday.
Rasmussen Reports updates its White House Watch survey daily Monday through Friday at 8:30 am Eastern based on a three-day rolling average of 1,500 Likely U.S. Voters. The latest survey is the first to include results following the release by the New York Times of new allegations of sexual harassment against Trump. The GOP nominee has denied the charges and has demanded that the newspaper apologize for what he calls "a libelous article." We’ll be watching to see what impact, if any, those allegations have on next week’s surveys.
Eighty-seven percent (87%) of voters now say they’ve made up their minds how they will vote, and among these voters, it’s Trump 48%, Clinton 46%. Among those who say they still could change their minds between now and Election Day, it’s Trump 37%, Clinton 36%, Johnson 17% and Stein 9%.
The survey of 1,500 Likely Voters was conducted on October 11-13, 2016 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 2.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
Clinton jumped on the release of the video with Trump’s sexual comments to say it shows her Republican rival's demeaning attitude toward women. But Trump countered that Clinton was an enabler who allowed her husband, former President Bill Clinton, to sexually assault women for years. Voters tend to agree with Trump that Bill Clinton's behavior was worse, but not surprisingly there's a sharp partisan difference of opinion. This survey, however, was taken prior to the latest allegations against Trump.
Despite high profile Republican defections on Trump’s side, he earns 77% of the GOP vote, while Clinton has 76% Democratic support. Trump also continues to lead among voters not affiliated with either major party and to do better among Democrats than Clinton does among Republicans.
GOP voters are more certain of their vote than Democrats and unaffiliateds are.
While other pollsters show women abandoning Trump, our latest survey finds the two candidates running almost even, but women are more than twice as likely as men to like some other candidate or be undecided. Trump has a six-point advantage among men.
Those 40 and older still prefer Trump over Clinton. Younger voters favor Clinton, but they also remain more likely than their elders to be undecided.
Women and men are equally certain of their vote at this point. Older voters are more sure of their vote than those who are younger.
Most Republican voters still think top GOP leaders are hurting the party with their continuing criticism of Trump and are only slightly more convinced that those leaders want Trump to be president.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security says it has confirmed hacking attempts on election systems in more than 20 states and has offered to provide states free testing of their systems before Election Day. While most voters are concerned about their state’s election system being hacked, they think state and local officials will do a better job protecting their vote than the feds will.
Voters continue to strongly believe that the media is more interested in controversy than in the issues when it comes to the presidential race.
As in previous presidential election cycles, voters expect reporters covering political campaigns to help their favorite candidates and think it's far more likely they will help Clinton than Trump.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/publ...se_watch_oct14
