Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton
Donald Trump and Hillary ClintonReuters

Donald Trump chipped away at Hillary Clinton's lead in the presidential race this week following the Orlando shooting attack, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday.

The poll, conducted from Monday to Friday, showed Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, with a 10.7 point lead among likely voters over Trump. The number is down from a lead of 14.3 points for Clinton on Sunday, the day that Omar Mateen who declared allegiance to the Islamic State (ISIS) killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando.

Trump seized on the attack to sharpen his security proposals, saying he would block immigration to the United States from any country with a "proven history of terrorism" against America and its allies if elected.

He also called for measures to make it more difficult for suspected terrorists to obtain firearms, veering from the Republican Party's general opposition to gun control.

Trump's comments may have cheered some voters, Reuters noted.

Some 45 percent of Americans said they supported Trump's idea to suspend Muslim immigration, up from 41.9 percent at the start of the month, according to the poll. Meanwhile, about 70 percent of Americans, including a majority of Democrats and Republicans, said they wanted to see at least moderate regulations and restrictions on guns, up from 60 percent in similar polls in 2013 and 2014.

Clinton focused her response to the Orlando attack on the need to boost intelligence gathering and defeat ISIS and what she called "radical jihadist terrorism," while warning against demonizing Muslim-Americans.

She stepped up her attacks on Trump after the Orlando attack, saying, “A ban on Muslims would not have stopped this attack. Neither would a wall.”

The Reuters poll comes two days after a Bloomberg News poll found that Clinton had opened up a double-digit lead nationally over Trump.

The poll found Clinton leading Trump 49 percent to 37 percent among likely voters in November's election, with 55 percent of those polled saying they could never vote for Trump.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)