Ahead of GOP convention, is Donald Trump gaining ground?
Is Donald Trump gaining ground on Hillary Clinton?
After a rough few weeks, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee got a welcome bit of good news on Wednesday with the release of new Quinnipiac polls showing him rising in several key swing states.
And it's a good time for some good news: as Republicans begin gathering in Cleveland ahead of next week's GOP convention, the party is striving to project an image of unity and forward momentum after a bruising and divisive primary season.
Quinnipiac found Trump ahead of Clinton by three points in Florida, 42 to 39 percent - a stark turnaround from last month, when Clinton was up by eight points, 47 to 39 percent.
In Pennsylvania, Trump is now up by two points, 43 to 41 percent. Last month, he was down one point in the Keystone State. In Ohio, the race is tied, with both candidates at 41 percent.
All three results are within the poll's margin of error, so they shouldn't be interpreted as a sure sign that Trump has taken the lead in these battleground states. But the numbers should worry Clinton's team - as Quinnipiac's polling team points out, no candidate since 1960 has won the presidency without carrying at least two of the three states in the poll.
It's possible the survey simply comes at an inauspicious time in the news cycle for Clinton. Apart from the media focus on Trump and the GOP veepstakes ahead of the Republican convention, Clinton herself hit a rough patch last week with the conclusion of the FBI investigation into her emails. Investigators decided not to recommend charging her with a crime for her use of a private email server as secretary of state, but they panned her "extremely careless" stewardship of sensitive, classified information, and they cast doubt on several explanations she's provided to explain the controversy.
Quinnipiac found Clinton Trump leading Clinton in all three states on the question of who is more honest and trustworthy, by margins ranging from 10 to 15 points - a marked increase in Trump's lead on that question. And on the question of who has higher moral standards, the two candidates are effectively tied in all three states.
"While there is no definite link between Clinton's drop in Florida and the U.S. Justice Department decision not to prosecute her for her handling of e-mails, she has lost ground to Trump on questions which measure moral standards and honesty," explains Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac poll.
Only time will tell whether Clinton is able to arrest Trump's rise and swing the pendulum in the opposite direction. The endorsement she received yesterday from her erstwhile primary rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, could help pull a few more skeptical liberals into her fold. But with the GOP convention slated to begin next Monday, Clinton may have to wait for the Democrats' own convention the following week to really find the breathing room to reassert herself.
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Some other polls out this week show the race remains close nationally and in several battleground states.
A Monmouth poll released Tuesday found Trump barely edging Clinton out in Iowa, 44 to 42 percent, with six percent going to Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson.
In Nevada, though, Monmouth found Clinton ahead of Trump 45 to 41 percent, with Johnson nabbing five percent.
In Colorado, Harper Polling, a Republican-aligned outfit, found Clinton ahead of Trump 45 to 38 percent in a poll released Monday.
Nationally, according to a McClatchy/Marist poll released Wednesday, Clinton is ahead of Trump, 42 to 39 percent. If Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein are added to the mix, Clinton's lead increases to five points, 40 to 35 percent, while Johnson draws 10 percent and Stein draws five percent.
And in the same four-way matchup, an Economist/YouGov survey released Wednesday found Clinton up by three points, 40 to 37 percent, with five percent going to Johnson and two percent going to Stein.