Trump addresses crowd at Waukesha, Wisconsin
Trump addresses crowd at Waukesha, WisconsinReuters

Six days after Republican nominee Donald Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton faced off in the second 2016 presidential debate, the GOP’s standard bearer still faces an uphill battle for the White House.

Despite what was generally perceived to be a significantly improved performance by Mr. Trump over the first debate, he not received any noticeable bump in the polls.

A YouGov poll taken immediately after last Sunday’s debate showed registered voters who watched the debate were roughly evenly split on who won – with 47% saying Mrs. Clinton came out ahead, compared to 42% who said Trump bested her.

The previous YouGov poll showed 57% of viewers saying Clinton won the first debate, compared to just 30% who felt Trump won.

A CNN/ORC showed a similar shift, with 63% saying Trump had performed better than expected, while 60% say Clinton had underperformed.

Nevertheless, polling since Sunday still shows a strong advantage for the ex-Secretary of State, who now leads in the RealClearPolitics average of polls by 5.3 points in a 4-way race – and by 6.7 points in a two-way race.

Both figures represent a continued decline for Trump, who trailed Clinton by 3.7 and 4.6 points respectively in two-way and four-way poll averages on the eve of the second debate.

In state polling, Clinton continues to dominate, leading in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Colorado by wide margins.

Even in states which hitherto had favored Trump, Clinton has taken a lead, including in Nevada, Iowa, North Carolina, and Florida, where she now enjoys a 2.9 point advantage in the polling average.

And despite a nearly four-point lead by Trump in Ohio as recently as early October, Clinton now leads Trump in the Buckeye State 44.0% – 42.4%.

This despite a week of Wikileaks email dumps revealing anti-Catholic comments by senior Clinton staff members and the disclosure of debate questions by then-CNN commentator Donna Brazile to the Clinton campaign during the Democratic primary.

In a silver lining for the Trump campaign, however, the Republican leads Clinton in Ohio according to the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll by one point, a five-point improvement over their last poll.