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Bounce Back: Hillary Regains National Lead in Post-DNC Polling

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  August 02, 2016 10:20 AM

In the days following Donald Trump's convention in Cleveland, national pollsters detected a sizable polling surge for the GOP ticket, as we predicted. Trump even grabbed the lead in the Real Clear Politics average, boosted by Hillary Clinton's spiking negatives. Now, as we also anticipated, the Democratic nominee is gaining from her party's four-day infomercial in Philadelphia. If there were any doubts about whether the DNC's strong primetime programming mostly overshadowed its division and drama, they've been put to rest:

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The LA Times/USC poll is the one outlier above -- it's been consistently the Trump-friendliest series apart from Rasmussen -- with all other pollsters showing a Hillary bump.  We'll get to a few of the numbers in a moment, but here's an interesting data point from Gallup about public perceptions of the two parties' respective conventions:

Voters split almost evenly on more favorable/less favorable perceptions of the Democrats coming out of Philly (44/42), whereas a majority now view the GOP in a less favorable light after Cleveland (35/52). It is the first time Gallup has ever measured either party's standing drop on the heels of its nominating convention. So even if Hillary and the Democrats didn't help themselves nearly as much as they have in past cycles, the juxtaposition with Trump has redounded to Clinton's benefit. Which brings us to the latest CBS News and CNN polls. Why focus on those? Because they were widely and reasonably touted by Trump supporters last week as strong evidence of his bounce. CBS went from Clinton +6 in June to Trump +3 in late July. Similarly, CNN measured a ten-point net bounce for Trump, up from a seven-point deficit to a three-point lead, over a similar period. This week? Hillary has fully recovered her six-point advantage in a head-to-head match-up, according to CBS -- although it's a touch closer with "Libertarian" Gary Johnson (sigh) included.  CNN's prior batch of numbers were met with breathless fanfare when Trump jumped out in front.  Now:

This is just one survey, so we'll wait for more confirmation, but hoo boy. Lots of worrying numbers in there for Trump. For instance: Hillary has seized massive leads among women (+23) and non-white voters (+71), and is beating Trump badly among Americans under age 45 (+33).  She also holds a nine-point edge with independents, and a double-digit lead with college-educated whites, a demographic Republican presidential tickets have carried for the last six decades.  That's a very serious trend we've been keeping an eye on.  Simply put, Trump is currently underperforming Mitt Romney among nearly every major voting cohort.  Meanwhile, as GOP unity appears to have eroded (gee, really?), Bernie backers appear to be consolidating around Clinton:

Putin's going to have to better than the DNC email leaks, it seems. Trump's favorability rating plunged from (-5) to (-16) after the DNC, indicating that Democratic attacks hit their targets.  It's unclear how much of the Khan controversy is baked into these numbers. What's especially remarkable about Hillary's big lead in the fresh CNN poll is that she's built it while remaining quite unpopular.  A solid majority of respondents still view her unfavorably, and just 34 percent call her honest and trustworthy.  It's kind of amazing the number is even that high, frankly.  All in all, it looks like Hillary Clinton has regained her footing as America's least un-favorite presidential nominee.  Parting thoughts: If you're tempted to dismiss the polls as biased or skewed (I've left out the new Reuters survey, which changed its methodology), keep in mind that these are two polling series that were hailed by the Trump campaign just last week.  Also, why would a confident candidate start peddling conspiratorial pre-spin like this?