Clinton’s Favorability Surges in Pennsylvania Poll After Democratic Convention
A new poll released by Public Policy Polling shows Hillary Clinton ahead of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania following the Democratic National Convention.
Clinton received 45 percent of support among the state’s poll participants, while Trump is backed by 42 percent of participants. Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson received 4 percent of support, and Green Party presumptive nominee Jill Stein received 2 percent.
With just Clinton and Trump considered, Clinton leads in Pennsylvania at 49-45 – similar to the 46-42 lead she had in late June, according to the poll. The PPP found that neither the Democratic nor Republican conventions had any major impact on voter support among presidential candidates, and that they “just helped move some undecided partisans skeptical of their party’s nominees off the fence and toward the candidates they likely would have ended up with anyway,” the poll reads.
The most notable change is perhaps Clinton’s favorability rating among Pennsylvania poll participants, which has risen considerably throughout the last few months. It rose by 8 points since the beginning of June, when Clinton had a -21 net favorability rating at 35 favorable/56 unfavorable. It is now -13 at 40/53. Trump’s favorability rating among state poll participants has risen by 5 points, from -25 to -20.
In Pennsylvania, 48 percent of poll participants see the DNC as a success, while 38 percent call it a failure. After both the Democratic and Republican conventions, the Democratic Party received a 44/49 favorability rating nationwide, while the GOP received a 34/54 favorability rating. Michelle Obama and Joe Biden seem to be the most influential Democratic surrogates, according to the nationwide poll.
Many supporters of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders appear rigid in their opposition to Clinton, according to the poll. Clinton received just a 5/64 favorability rating among Sanders’s supporters in Pennsylvania, compared to a 4/83 rating nationally. Sanders’s supporters in Pennsylvania gave Trump a comparable favorability rating of 5/58.
The “undecideds,” according to the poll, are largely Democratic-leaning voters “who still just don’t like Hillary Clinton.”
The poll found that undecideds would prefer Barack Obama as president compared to Trump by 30 points in Pennsylvania and 49 points nationally.
The PPP poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. According to Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight, PPP receives a B+ polling grade and has a slight Republican bias.
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