Silver State Battleground Poll: Trump Takes the Lead Over Clinton in Nevada

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump smiles during a campaign rally in Henderson, Nevada on October, 5, 2016. (Photo: AP)

With less than one week to go before Election Day, Donald Trump has taken the lead over Hillary Clinton in the key battleground state of Nevada. The People’s Pundit Daily (PPD) Silver State Battleground Poll finds Mr. Trump leading Mrs. Clinton by 5 points, 48% to 43%, with Libertarian Gary Johnson losing 1 point from the prior week at 5%.

The latest results represent a 3-point uptick in support for the Republican and a flatline for the Democrat compared to last week.

Independents, who made up a larger share of the vote in 2012 than Republicans and appear to be again, are now breaking for the New York businessman massively by 20 points, 50% to 30%. Worth noting, Gov. Mitt Romney lost Nevada to President Barack Obama in 2012 but carried independents by only 7 points. Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton are winning the vast majority of their respective party bases, she takes only 2% of the Republican vote and Mr. Trump takes 8% of the Democratic vote.

PPD has found each candidate losing much larger shares of their base in other battleground states, including Pennsylvania for Mr. Trump and North Carolina for Mrs. Clinton.

Mrs. Clinton leads among Hispanic voters statewide by 54% to 32%, a smaller margin than the poll found in the previous week and a far smaller margin than Mr. Obama enjoyed over Mr. Romney. Hispanics made up 19% of the electorate in the previous PPD Silver State Battleground Poll, similiar to 2012, but now decreased their expected share to 18%. Mr. Obama carried Hispanic voters during his reelection bid 71% to 24%, but Mr. Trump outperforms Mr. Romney among this demographic.

White voters, who make up roughly 66% of the electorate, and are breaking big for Mr. Trump 58% to 34%, while black voters go 81% to 12% for Mrs. Clinton. As PPD reported Wednesday, Leslie Wimes, the president of the Democratic African-American women’s caucus, told MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson that the Clinton campaign was right to be in “panic mode” about low voter enthusiasm in the black community.

“We love President Obama,” she said. “That doesn’t transfer to Hillary Clinton by osmosis. It’s over now as far as the African-American community is concerned. She had time back then to get into the community and get people out to vote. Now, you know, the numbers are the numbers. There’s nothing she can do now.”

Interestingly, the likely black vote share of the electorate has fallen slightly to 8% from 9% in the latest PPD Silver State Battleground Poll.

The Republican candidate also continues to enjoy a substantial voter enthusiasm gap, with 64% of Trump voters saying they are “extremely enthusiastic” and 52% of Clinton voters saying the same.

“While the Clinton campaign appears confident they will take the Silver State, they are likely underestimating their crisis of low enthusiasm,” said Rich Baris, PPD’s Editor-in-Chief and Senior Political Analyst “As we’ve found in Florida, critical voting blocs in the Democratic coalition are either not excited or are not supporting Mrs. Clinton by the same margins that they supported Mr. Obama. The announcement by the FBI director reopening the probe into the former secretary of state’s emails–and now the new reports confirming serious probes into the Clinton Foundation–could translate into a complete collapse in support on or before Election Day.”

The PPD Silver State Battleground Poll was conducted from October 29 to November 1 and is based on 723 interviews conducted via Internet panel with Florida residents participating in the PPD Internet Polling Panel (See Methodology). Respondents said they definitely will vote in the 2016 general election for president or already have voted early, by mail or absentee ballot.