Poll: Clinton, Trump locked in close race in New Hampshire
Defying the national trend of a widening Hillary Clinton lead over opponent Donald Trump, a new poll out Friday shows the race is actually tightening in the battleground state of New Hampshire.
A WBUR survey found Clinton up 41 percent to Trump’s 38 percent among likely voters -- a three-point edge that’s still within the poll’s margin of error of 4.4 percentage points. Libertarian party nominee Gary Johnson has 11 percent of support.
A head-to-head matchup between Trump and Clinton would yield a slightly larger lead for the Democratic presidential nominee: Forty-six percent for Clinton, with 41 percent for Trump.
In WBUR’s last New Hampshire poll, which was taken in late September, Clinton led Trump by seven points.
New Hampshire voters remain skeptical about both candidates, though Clinton retains a slight advantage when it comes to favorability ratings. Forty percent of likely voters view Clinton in a favorable light, while 34 percent see Trump that way. And while 41 percent say Clinton is a “role model for young people,” just 13 percent see Trump similarly.
The poll was conducted just days after Sunday’s presidential debate, when Trump was able to publicly respond to the vulgar 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape where he can be heard saying that he would sometimes “grab [women] by the p****.” The survey, however, was taken before the latest allegations of sexual assault against Trump were published in various media outlets like the New York Times. Trump has denied those accusations, calling them “pure fiction” and “outright lies.”
The New Hampshire poll also found voters were tied when it came to the U.S. Senate race, with current Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte and her Democratic challenger, Gov. Maggie Hassan, earning 47 percent of support each. Sixty-one percent of those surveyed said Ayotte made the right decision when she withdrew her endorsement from Trump after the unaired “Access Hollywood” recording surfaced.
The WBUR poll surveyed 501 likely voters from Oct. 10-12.