Poll: Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump by tight two-point margin
With just 10 days to go before Election Day, Hillary Clinton is leading Donald Trump by a close, two-point margin, according to a new national poll out Saturday.
The Washington Post/ABC News survey found that among likely voters, Clinton garners 47 percent of support, while Trump has 45 percent. That two-point advantage is well within the poll’s margin of error of three percentage points. The poll, however, was conducted earlier this week, before Friday’s revelations from the FBI that more emails were found that appear “pertinent” to the probe of Clinton’s private email server use.
The poll numbers are a far cry from ABC’s own national poll from last weekend, which found that Clinton had a double-digit advantage over Trump, 50 to 38 percent.
Despite the close race, a majority of likely voters -- 59 percent -- expect Clinton to win come Election Day, with about 90 percent of her supporters believing that. But that expectation isn’t dampening the likelihood that voters will turn out to the polls on Nov. 8. Just 2 percent of likely voters who back Clinton and expect her to win say their prediction is giving them less motivation to vote. Another 2 percent of Trump fans who believe he will win say they’re less likely to vote because of it.
Early voting is well underway in the some states, but the latest developments in the FBI investigation of Clinton’s private server could still move the needle before Election Day.
Trump himself expects the news to benefit his previously struggling campaign.
Speaking to the New York Times Friday -- after it was revealed that additional emails were found on a laptop shared by Clinton aide Huma Abedin and her husband, disgraced ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York -- Trump said of the FBI probe, “This changes everything.”
The Washington Post/ABC News poll was conducted from Oct. 24-27, among 1,779 adults, with a margin of error of 2.5 points. Among the sample of 1,148 likely voters, the margin of error was 3 percentage points.