Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump waved to the crowd at an event in Lawrenceville, N.J., on Thursday. Republican support has allowed Mr. Trump to narrow Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton’s lead in a hypothetical matchup to a 3-percentage-point margin, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. PHOTO: EDUARDO MUNOZ ALVAREZ/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Republicans have rallied behind Donald Trump in the weeks since he effectively clinched his party’s presidential nomination, helping him narrow Democrat Hillary Clinton’s once double-digit lead to just 3 percentage points, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows.
Mrs. Clinton leads the New York businessman, 46% to 43%, in a test matchup between the two likely nominees, the poll finds. That represents a much tighter margin than her 11-percentage-point lead in April and marks the first time in Journal/NBC News polling this year that her support has dropped below 50% in a matchup with Mr. Trump.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Mrs. Clinton’s rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, leads Mr. Trump by a much wider, 15-point margin, 54% to 39%, in a hypothetical matchup. Mr. Sanders still faces long odds of wresting the Democratic nomination from Mrs. Clinton.
The main reason Mr. Trump has eaten into Mrs. Clinton’s lead is that he enjoys much wider support from GOP voters after his decisive win in the Indiana primary earlier this month, a victory that prompted his two remaining rivals to exit the race. The presumptive GOP nominee has also opened a modest lead among self-described independent voters.
In the matchup against Mrs. Clinton, Republican support for Mr. Trump jumped to 86%, from 72% in mid-April, and the share of GOP voters who said they would support Mrs. Clinton fell to 6% from 13% a month earlier. Democrats’ support for Mrs. Clinton, meanwhile, remains largely unchanged.
The two likely nominees still suffer from the worst public images in the modern history of presidential politics, with 58% viewing Mr. Trump negatively and 54% expressing similar sentiments about Mrs. Clinton. But that tally marks an improvement for Mr. Trump since April, when some 65% of voters expressed an unfavorable opinion about the presumed Republican nominee.
A more favorable view of Mr. Trump among Republicans is primarily responsible for his improving image. In April, GOP voters split evenly, 42% to 42%, between those who viewed him favorably and those who saw him in a negative light. This month, after Mr. Trump essentially sealed the nomination, the split was 58% positive to 25% negative.
Mr. Trump also enjoys a slightly better—if still overwhelmingly negative—image among independent voters, with 58% viewing him negatively and 26% viewing him positively. Independents now view him slightly more positively than they do Mrs. Clinton, helping the Republican open a modest, 5-percentage-point lead over the likely Democratic nominee among these voters.
The results are bound to fuel Democrats’ concerns that the increasingly bitter primary between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders has tarnished her image.
The share of Democratic primary voters who view Mrs. Clinton favorably has dropped from 84% last June to 65% in the latest poll, while the share who view her negatively jumped from 7% to 21%.
A chief task for any nominee is to unify his or her party ahead of the general election. In the new survey, some 83% of Democrats said they prefer Mrs. Clinton over Mr. Trump, down slightly from 87% in April.
A remarkable one-in-10 voters say they wouldn't vote for either Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Trump, a reflection of both candidates’ unusually bad public images, and 47% say they would consider an independent or third-party candidate in the fall, up from 40% in the spring of 2012 and 38% in the winter of 2008. Half of voters in the current poll say they wouldn't consider an independent or third-party candidate.
Some 58% of voters want the next president to “focus on progress and move America forward,” compared with 38% who want someone who will “focus on protecting what has made America great,” an apparent advantage for Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Sanders over Mr. Trump.
But 53% favor a potentially unpredictable candidate who will “bring major changes to the way government operates,” compared with 43% who want someone with “a steady approach…even it means fewer changes.”
In many ways, the latest Journal/NBC News poll mirrors the 2012 race between President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney. The splits between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump among men, women, African-Americans and Hispanics in the May poll are roughly equivalent to the margins that the 2012 candidates notched with each segment of the electorate, as recorded by exit polls that year.
In the May poll, Mr. Trump leads among men by 9 percentage points, compared with Mr. Romney’s 7-point advantage among men in 2012. Mrs. Clinton, meanwhile, leads among women by 13 percentage points, compared with Mr. Obama’s 11-point edge in 2012. She maintains 48- and 79-point leads with Hispanics and African-American voters, respectively.
Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton greeted supporters at a rally in Lexington, Ky., on Monday. Some 83% of Democrats said they prefer Mrs. Clinton over Mr. Trump, down slightly from 87% in April, according to a new Journal/NBC News poll. PHOTO: AARON P. BERNSTEIN/REUTERS
In one finding that will be watched closely, Mr. Trump tops Mrs. Clinton among white voters by 16 points, compared with Mr. Romney’s 20-point margin among white voters in 2012. That difference, if it persists, would be important, as white non-Hispanic voters are expected to account for about 69% of the electorate.
Mr. Trump performs much better among lower-income Americans than Mr. Romney did, as well as among those voters who didn't attend college. Mrs. Clinton, meanwhile, outperforms Mr. Obama’s 2012 showing among college graduates and voters who make more than $50,000 annually.
Perhaps the best news in the poll for Mr. Trump is that he outpaces Mrs. Clinton, 46% to 43%, in the 12 most competitive presidential battleground states—states that Mr. Obama won by 1.5 percentage points in 2012. The presumptive Republican nominee does particularly well in the South and Midwest.
The survey of 1,000 registered voters was conducted May 15-19 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. Additional results from the survey will be released Monday.