The Oct 30-Nov 3 opinion poll showed that
44 percent of likely voters in Tuesday's election support Clinton while 39
percent support Trump.
Clinton's lead has varied from 4 to 7
percentage points every day over the past week in the Reuters/Ipsos poll, while
other opinion polls have shown the race becoming increasingly competitive. Real
Clear Politics, which averages together most national polls, estimates that
Clinton's lead has dropped from 5 points at the end of last week to less than 2
points on Friday.
This is similar to 2012, when the
Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll showed President Barack Obama with a 3 to 7 point
advantage over Republican challenger Mitt Romney in the final days of the
campaign while Real Clear Politics showed Obama's lead nearly vanishing ahead of
the election. Obama was re-elected with a 4-point advantage in the popular
vote.
Clinton, despite her national lead, appears
to have lost ground in a number of states, according to a separate polling
effort that takes a more granular look at the race.
The Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation
project shows races in Florida, North Carolina and Michigan have tilted away
from Clinton over the past week and are now considered too close to call. These
swing states are hotly contested because their voters can swing either to
Republicans or Democrats and can be decisive in presidential elections.
The project estimates that Clinton still
has a 90 percent chance of winning the election, however.
With four days before Election Day,
Republicans are increasingly optimistic about Trump winning.
Some of this appears to be tied to Federal
Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey telling US lawmakers on Oct 28
that his agency was investigating a new trove of emails as part of a probe into
Clinton's handling of classified information while serving as US secretary of
state.
While Comey said the emails might not be
significant to the investigation, Trump and Republican leaders have seized on
the news, calling it evidence that Clinton is unfit for the White House.
Since the FBI announcement, the
Reuters/Ipsos poll has seen a surge in Republican expectations. More than half
of Republicans now say they think Trump will win the election - up from a low
point last week when Republicans were more likely to think Clinton would win.
The Reuters/Ipsos national tracking poll
was conducted online in English in all 50 states. It includes 2,021 people who
were considered to be likely voters from their voting history, registration
status and stated intention to participate in the election. It has a credibility
interval, a measure of accuracy, of 3 percentage points.
