Hillary Clinton has emerged from the two major party conventions and their aftermath with an 8 point lead over Donald Trump, aided by a consolidation of support among Democrats and a failure so far by Republicans to rally equally behind their nominee, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Clinton and her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, now lead Trump and his running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, by 50 percent to 42 percent among registered voters, double the 4 point advantage the Democrats held on the eve of the Republican convention in mid-July. Among likely voters, the Democratic nominee leads by 51 percent to 44 percent.
In a four-way race that includes Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein, Clinton leads Trump by 45 percent to 37 percent, with Johnson at 8 percent and Stein at 4 percent. Before the Republican convention, she had a 4 percentage-point lead in a four-way matchup.
The poll confirms that Clinton received a larger post-convention bounce than Trump did from his convention. But she appears to have been aided as well by days of controversy that Trump generated with his sharp criticism of a Muslim American family whose son, Army Capt. Humayun Khan, was killed in Iraq in 2004 and who rebuked Trump on the stage of the Democratic convention.
When asked about the criticisms Trump exchanged with Khizr and Ghazala Khan, 13 percent of registered voters said they approve of the way the business mogul handled the matter, while 74 percent said they disapprove. Overall, 56 percent said they strongly disapprove of the GOP nominee’s handling of the controversy.
The conventions did not ease public dissatisfaction with the choice in this election. Almost 6 in 10 registered voters say they are dissatisfied with the choice between Clinton and Trump as the major-party candidates, virtually unchanged from mid-July.
The Post-ABC survey is in line with most polls conducted in the days after the Democratic convention in Philadelphia ended. Advisers to the two major-party nominees agree that it will take several more weeks before it is clear where the race stands, as convention bounces generally dissipate over time. After that, the next big opportunity for a shift in the race probably will not come until late September, when the first of the three scheduled presidential debates takes place.
Clinton’s lead resembles the 6 point post-convention leads for Barack Obama in 2012 and George W. Bush in 2004, both of whom won their bids for second terms. Yet Al Gore’s 5 point lead after the 2000 convention shrank to a narrow popular vote lead on Election Day, with Bush garnering more electoral votes.
