New Rasmussen Poll Puts Trump Over Clinton Nationwide

A new national poll has Donald Trump just above Hillary Clinton among likely voters. The poll suggests that Clinton’s post-Convention bump has finally waned among voters.

The Conservative-leaning Rasmussen Reports poll, published September 1, found that, in a four-way race for the presidency, Republican nominee Donald Trump held 40 percent of likely voter support. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was one-percentage point behind with 39 percent support. Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson follows with seven percent support, and the Green party’s Jill Stein rounds out the top with three percent support.

But while Rasmussen gives Trump the lead, most major national polls find Clinton still maintains a strong lead over Trump.

According to RealClearPolitics, the national poll average puts Clinton nearly five percentage points over Trump, 46.8 percent to 41.9 percent. Even Conservative-leaning Fox News shows Clinton leading Trump by six percentage points.

According to data site FiveThirtyEight, Hillary Clinton has a 74.1 percent chance of winning the November election, and a 75.9 percent chance of winning if the election were held Sept. 2.

Both numbers have dropped from their early August highs, but Clinton still maintains a lead over Trump.

“The tighter margins in the polls, which reflect a loss of support for Clinton along with a modest improvement for Trump, have come gradually over the past few weeks,” Nate Silver wrote for FiveThirtyEight.

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There isn’t any guarantee that Trump will continue to gain ground. Over the course of the year, polls have oscillated between showing a dead heat at Trump’s best moments and a lead of 8 to 10 percentage points for Clinton at her peaks. We’re about halfway between those goal posts now. It’s plausible that the recent shift reflects Clinton’s convention bounce wearing off — reversion to the mean — as much as it does momentum for Trump per se. Most importantly, Clinton is still ahead, with a 74 percent chance of winning according to the polls-only model and a 70 percent chance according to polls-plus.

Sources: Rasmussen Reports, RealClearPolitics, FiveThirtyEight (2) / Photo credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr