Poll: Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump neck-and-neck in national race
Hillary Clinton just edges out Republican rival Donald Trump in a new national poll out Wednesday, though most voters say neither of the White House contenders would make a good president.
A new Quinnipiac University survey finds that Clinton leads by just two percentage points, with 42 percent of support nationally compared to Trump's 40 percent -- within the poll's margin of error of 2.4 percentage points. That's a narrower gap than when Quinnipiac took a national survey at the beginning of June, when Clinton beat Trump 45 to 41 percent.
Third-party candidates make little difference: with the Libertarian party's Gary Johnson and the Green party's Jill Stein added in, Clinton still garners 39 percent of support, with Trump at 37 percent. Johnson gets eight percent and Stein scores four percent.
The survey found a majority of Americans held gloomy views of the top parties' candidates. Trump's favorability ratings are 34 percent positive - 57 percent negative, with similar ratings for Clinton (37 - 57 percent negative). Voters also say neither candidate will make a good chief executive: 58 - 35 percent say Trump will not be a good president, while 53-43 percent believe Clinton also won't be a good president.
On candidate qualities, Clinton trumps her rival for being better prepared to be president (58-33 percent), for being more intelligent (53-33 percent), and for having higher moral standards (46-37 percent). But voters believe Trump is more honest and trustworthy (45-37 percent) and a stronger leader (49-43 percent).
The poll also found that a majority of Americans believe the 2016 campaign cycle has helped spike the level of hatred and prejudice in the nation. Sixty-one percent of respondents said they believed the elections have "increased" the levels of hatred and prejudice. Just one percent say they've "decreased" it, 34 percent say it's had no impact, and three percent said they don't know. For those who say it has increased, about 67 percent pin the blame on Trump's campaign (compared to the 16 percent that believe it's Clinton's fault and the nine percent that blame it on both).
Quinnipiac University polled 1,610 registered voters nationally from June 21 - 27.