Hillary Clinton Leads By 4 Points In Florida As Debate Damage Pours Down On Trump

Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:16 pm

A new poll of Florida has found that race that looked it could be tied has turned into a 4 point for Hillary Clinton after her strong debate performance.

According to the Mason-Dixon poll:

Following the first debate of the presidential general election campaign, Democrat Hillary Clinton has a 46%-42% lead over Donald Trump in Florida. Libertarian Gary Johnson is supported by 7%, Green Party candidate Jill Stein is backed by only 1%and 4% remain undecided.

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The race in Florida continues to predictably split among the various demographic sub-groups. Clinton leads among Democrats (83%-10%), women (54%-36%), blacks (92%-1%), Hispanics (64%-29%) and in Southeast Florida (58%-29%). Trump is ahead with Republicans (77%-13%), unaffiliated voters (41%-33%), men (49%-37%) and non-Hispanic whites (53%-33%). Trump still has very strong support in North Florida (53%-37%) and Southwest Florida (51%-36%).

In the generally decisive I-4 corridor, Clinton currently has a slight advantage. She now has a 47%-40% in the swing Tampa Bay area, while Trump only leads 46%-43% in more Republican-leaning Central Florida.

Florida is vital for Trump. If he loses Florida, he is almost certain to lose the election. What the debate accomplished was that it brought some Democrats home to Clinton while also confirming the doubts than many voters have about Trump.

Voters need to see a presidential version of Donald Trump. What they were treated to was 90 minutes of the same old Trump being Trump shtick that has become familiar to observers of the 2016 presidential election.

The problem for Trump is that he is his own worst enemy. The Republican nominee takes a bad cycle and makes it worse. He is never able to dig himself out of trouble. Trump has one move in a time of turmoil, and that is to dig deeper.

Previously, the press bailed Trump out by turning their attention to negative coverage of Hillary Clinton, but Clinton has run a clean campaign since returning to trail, which means that odds of Trump reversing the trendline of this election will be slim unless he can reinvent himself as an entirely different person at the second presidential debate.



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