While Hillary Clinton’s position in the polls had stabilized last week following a slow decline from her post-convention highs, a series of controversies in recent days has fueled yet another decline, bringing the race into a virtual dead heat.
In August Mrs. Clinton led former reality TV star and real estate mogul Donald Trump by as much as 7.6 points according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls.
By last week that margin was more than cut in half, giving the former Secretary of State a fairly consistent 2-3 point lead. Despite optimism among Trump supporters during Clinton’s slow decline through late August, in the first week of September, the race had stabilized with a narrow but persistent lead for the Democrat.
Over the past few days, however, questions regarding Clinton’s health and her efforts to conceal an illness not only raised issues of her physical fitness but also aggravated a long-running image problem, with only a paltry 35% of likely voters saying she was more honest and trustworthy than Trump even before the latest health scare.
When Clinton fainted – or nearly fainted according to aides – on Sunday during a 9/11 memorial service in Manhattan, the campaign initially stonewalled on the issue, refusing to disclose the candidates location after she was abruptly evacuated or the nature of her illness.
Eventually Clinton spokespeople did acknowledge she had been diagnosed with pneumonia, and had suffered from dehydration stemming from the illness.
But critics slammed Clinton and her campaign for concealing the illness, noting that by last Thursday at the latest, they were aware of her condition, yet failed to notify the media. Even senior Obama advisor David Axelrod ripped Clinton’s handling of the incident, writing on Twitter: “Antibiotics can take care of pneumonia. What’s the cure for an unhealthy penchant for privacy that repeatedly creates unnecessary problems?”
On Friday, comments by Mrs. Clinton at an event in New York City also stirred controversy, when she claimed half of Trump’s supporters fit into the “basket of deplorables” – “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic.”
The comments were unfavorably compared to 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s offhand statement during a fundraiser that year claiming “47 percent” of the country were looking for handouts and would invariably vote Democrat.
Clinton was also dogged by further revelations regarding her private email server and the Department of Justice investigation into her mishandling of classified information. Documents disclosed by the FBI revealed that Mrs. Clinton had maintained not one digital device as implied by earlier comments, but 15, 13 of which had been destroyed by staff or were otherwise unaccounted for.
The latest polls show Clinton’s standing taking yet another dive, with Trump leading in a number of nationwide polls, as well as polling in key battleground states.
The latest LA Times poll shows Trump leading by six points, while Rasmussen gives Trump a two-point lead. CVOTER International has Trump beating Clinton by one point, while the latest CBS and Reuters/Ipsos polls show the race in a dead heat.
In Virginia, where Clinton led Trump by double digits in August, a new University of Mary Washington poll shows Trump down by just three, while he leads Clinton in Florida by four according to JMC Analytics, and by three according to the CNN/ORC survey.
In Ohio Trump is also leading Clinton by five points according to polls by CNN and Bloomberg.
Even in Nevada, with a burgeoning Hispanic population, Trump is up in recent polls, beating Clinton by two according to Monmouth and by one point according to NBC.
And in Maine’s Second Congressional District – which awards its single elector separately from the rest of the state – Trump led by 10 points according to Colby College’s latest poll, and 5 according to a survey by Emerson.
After the latest wave of polling, FiveThirtyEight’s poll-plus forecast now gives Trump his best odds at beating Clinton since the GOP Convention in July, with a 38.3% chance of winning, compared to just 20.5% in August.