Trump Gains On Clinton In Pennsylvania

Hillary Clinton still leads Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, but Donald Trump is quickly gaining on her, a new poll found.

In the Monmouth University survey, Trump trails Clinton by four points in the swing state, significantly cutting into his 10-point deficit from the previous poll in October, notes the Observer. In the most recent poll, a 48 percent plurality said that they would back Clinton, while 44 percent said the same of Trump. Three percent selected Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson, and one percent backed Green Party nominee Jill Stein.

“Clinton is still in the lead, but the race has tightened in the past four weeks,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute. “It looks like this shift was in the works even before Friday’s FBI bombshell, which has made only a small contribution to this overall narrowing.”

Murray was referring to FBI director James Comey’s announcement on October 28 that the bureau had uncovered an additional trove of deleted emails from the private server Clinton used as secretary of state, notes CNN. In an October 28 letter to Congress, Comey said that the FBI will review the new documents to determine if it contains any information relevant to the investigation they had conducted and closed in the summer.

After the news broke, four percent of Pennsylvania voters told Monmouth pollsters that it had changed their minds on how they would vote in the presidential election, while 89 percent said that it had no impact, and six percent were unaware of the developments. Among those who said that the news influenced them to change their votes, Trump had a small advantage and is estimated to have gained an additional one percent of support as a direct result of the email revelations.

At the same time, Trump’s favorability has climbed to 32 percent, from 27 percent in October, while Clinton’s has dropped from 41 percent in October to 36 percent in the most recent poll.

Sources: Observer, CNN / Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons