Trump Moves Slightly Ahead of Clinton in Latest Public Opinion Poll

Donald Trump has moved slightly ahead of Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House, according to the latest public opinion poll released on Tuesday.

Trump now leads Clinton by 45% to 43% among likely voters in the new survey conducted by CNN and the Opinion Research Corporation, coming from 8 points own after the end of the Democratic Convention in July.

Clinton's numbers have fallen dramatically amid new details of an FBI investigation into her use of an unsecured home server on which she stored classified information and persistent questions about her physical health.

The US Department of Justice decided last month not to press criminal charges against Clinton. But details of the FBI's three hour interview with Clinton, released on Friday, raised troubling new questions about her use of the email system when she was secretary of state.

Clinton said she did not know that the letter "C" before paragraphs in her emails meant that those paragraphs were classified. She also said she had never been briefed about the State Department's classification system, though she signed a statement after taking over as secretary of state saying that she had.    In the FBI interview Clinton also said that she did not recall certain matters regarding the emails because of a concussion that she had suffered in 2012.

That only led to more feverish speculation about the state of her health. It was compounded by yet another prolonged coughing fit as Clinton sought to deliver a speech on Monday in Cleveland, Ohio. Clinton could not cease coughing for as long as four minutes.

Later on her plane after leaving Cleveland, she once again had to cut short an encounter with the press because of coughing. Clinton has been embarrassed by about a dozen incidents of uncontrollable coughing during campaign appearances.

Photographs of Clinton being helped up a flight of stairs by her aides, of a stool to allow her to climb into her car and of secret service agents holding her up as she spoke at a rally have fueled the speculation about her health. The Clinton campaign and her allies in the news media have dismissed the talk as a "conspiracy theory."  A prominent doctor on television who raised serious concerns about her health was fired by his TV station when he refused to retract his comments.

Trump has been helped in the poll by his recent trip to Mexico to meet with the Mexican president. The poll shows that crucial independent voters, meaning they belong to neither major party, favor Trump by 49% to 29% for Clinton.

Though she leads overall in the female vote, Trump tops Clinton among married women by a large margin, with only 36% supporting Clinton. However 73% of unmarried women back Clinton. Both married and unmarried men support Trump by a 54% to 32% margin. 

Voters under 45 years old back Clinton by 54% to 29%, while voters older than 45 support Trump 54% to 39%. Overall, the poll showed that enthusiasm among voters for both candidates is down from previous elections. Only 46% of likely voters say they are enthusiastic about this election.  At this time in the election campaign of 2012 60% said they were, while in early September 2008 64% of voters said they were looking forward to the election. The low numbers of enthusiastic voters could mean few people come out to vote.

Source : QNA