With Five Days To Go, Poll Shows Tightening Race Between Clinton, Trump
WASHINGTON (CBSNewYork/AP) -- With just five days to go before Election Day, the race for president has tightened since mid-October with Hillary Clinton now leading Donald Trump by three points nationally, according to a new poll.
The CBS News/New York Times poll shows Clinton's lead is down from the nine-point margin she had over Trump a couple of weeks ago, but it is similar to where the race was at the beginning of October.
Among likely voters, Clinton now leads Trump 45 to 42 percent. Third party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein have five percent and four percent, respectively, with three percent of voters still undecided.
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In a two-way match-up without explicitly naming third party candidates, Clinton leads Trump by three points among leaned likely voters, down from an 11-point lead a couple of weeks ago, the poll found.
Most voters, 92 percent, said their minds are made up with eight percent saying they might change their minds before Tuesday.
The poll also looked at whether recent controversies have influenced voters.
When asked about the FBI looking at the emails of Clinton's aide, Huma Abedin, 32 percent say they're less likely to vote for Clinton while 62 percent of voters polled say it doesn't make a difference.
The poll also found that six in 10 likely voters say the recent allegations of unwanted sexual advances brought by a number of women against Trump don't make a difference in their vote. Four in 10 say it makes them less likely to vote for him.
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Clinton is scheduled to be in North Carolina Thursday, one of the states where she and Trump have been close. The other they continue to battle for is Florida, where President Barack Obama stumped Thursday on her behalf.
"All the progress, the progress we've made, goes out the window if we don't win this election," he said.
Trump, was campaigning in Jacksonville Thursday as part of a two-day Florida swing. The Trump campaign knows there is no realistic path to the White House without Florida, where polls give Clinton a narrow lead.
Both campaigns have been courting the minority vote, which is crucial in states where the race is tight.
"Donald Trump's closing with a positive message," Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said. "He's talking about his love for the country, his love for the people."
The Republican presidential nominee is also deploying his wife Melania, who delivered a speech Thursday outside Philadelphia, her first since her address at the Republican National Convention where she was accused of plagiarizing Michelle Obama.
While Trump has devoted perhaps his most valuable resource, his time, to Florida, Clinton has built a powerful ground game, backed by a dominant media presence, that dwarfs her opponent's.
The Democratic nominee has more than doubled Trump's investment in Florida television ads. Overall, the state has been deluged with $125 million in general election advertising, by far the most of any state.
Trump will also make two stops in North Carolina Thursday.
The CBS News/New York Times poll was conducted by telephone October 28-November 1, 2016 among a random sample of 1,561 adults nationwide, including 1,333 registered voters. Data collection was conducted on behalf of CBS News and The New York Times by SSRS of Media, PA. Phone numbers were dialed from samples of both standard land-line and cell phones.
The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample and the sample of registered voters could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups may be higher and is available by request. The margin of error includes the effects of standard weighting procedures which enlarge sampling error slightly.
(TM and © Copyright 2016 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2016 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
