October 3, 2016 | No Comments
A new poll gives Hillary Clinton a double-digit lead over Donald Trump, just as the GOP presidential nominee is traveling to Colorado for two events on Monday.
The Monmouth University poll shows Clinton leading Trump, 49 percent to 38 percent, with Libertarian Gary Johnson at 7 percent and Green Party nominee Jill Stein at 3 percent. Another 3 percent of likely voters are undecided.
The poll was conducted last Thursday through Sunday — well after last week’s presidential debate and subsequent spate of critical news coverage for Trump. Polls earlier in September had suggested the race in Colorado was closing: A Quinnipiac University poll in mid-September shows Clinton ahead by 2 points, and a CNN/ORC International poll right before the debate gave Trump a 1-point lead.
The Monmouth poll also shows less support for third-party candidates than other public surveys. Johnson was at 13 percent in last month’s Quinnipiac poll and 10 percent in the CNN/ORC poll. Stein, meanwhile, is near the 2 percent she earned in the Quinnipiac poll and 3 percent in the CNN/ORC poll.
Over the past four presidential elections, Colorado voters have given minor-party candidates almost 2.8 percent of the vote, almost a full percentage point higher than the national tally of 1.9 percent.
Clinton actually has a slight lead over Trump among white voters in the new poll, 45 percent to 42 percent. Among nonwhites, Clinton is far ahead of Trump, 71 percent to 17 percent. (The majority of nonwhite voters in Colorado are Latino.)
The Monmouth poll also shows only a small gender gap: Clinton leads by 7 points among men and by 13 points among women.
Trump is scheduled to make two stops in Colorado on Monday — the first in Pueblo, about 100 miles south of Denver, and the second in Loveland, which is roughly 50 miles north of Denver.
Colorado had largely fallen off the battleground-state map earlier this year, and the Clinton campaign still isn’t advertising on television there. A pro-Clinton super PAC, Priorities USA Action, is up on the airwaves in Colorado, as is the Trump campaign.
In the state’s Senate race, the Monmouth poll shows incumbent Democrat Michael Bennet is far ahead of his little-known GOP challenger, Darryl Glenn, 53 percent to 35 percent.
The poll surveyed 400 likely voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.