Press. voanews.com.
Republican Donald Trump has edged closer to Democrat Hillary Clinton in
U.S. presidential election public opinion polls, three weeks ahead of their
first face-to-face debate.
Several U.S. polls show Clinton, a former U.S. secretary of state, ahead
of Trump, a real estate mogul seeking his first elected office. But he has cut
her lead to about four percentage points or less, about half the gap of a few
weeks ago, even as she continues to narrowly lead in several battleground
election states that likely will determine the outcome of the November 8
election.
Numerous U.S. political analysts are still predicting she will become
the country's 45th president and its first female commander in chief, replacing
U.S. President Barack Obama when he leaves office next January. But the
analysts have narrowed the odds a bit in recent days.
The uncertainty of the race coincides with Monday's Labor Day holiday,
the traditional point at which many families end their summer vacations, send
their school-age children back to classes, and perhaps give new attention to
the quadrennial presidential election. The first of three scheduled
presidential debates is set for September 26, with the other two in October.
U.S. voters hold historically high unfavorable views of both candidates,
with surveys showing that many of them are more inclined to vote against either
Trump or Clinton rather than specifically favoring one over the other.
Both candidates have lobbed sharp verbal barbs at each other, hoping to
win over undecided voters. Clinton has repeatedly said Trump lacks the
temperament and knowledge to become president, while he points to what U.S.
investigators say was her "extremely careless" handling of classified
material on the unsecured, private email server she used while she was the
country's top diplomat during Obama's first term from 2009 to 2013.
There was new attention to Clinton's handling of the emails Friday as
the Federal Bureau of Investigation released an account of its probe and an
hours-long interview with Clinton in which she could not recall on numerous
occasions how she handled specific emails and did not know that a letter
"C" designation meant it was classified. The FBI, over the protests
of Republicans, in July decided Clinton's actions did not warrant criminal
charges being filed against her.
Trump hired new top campaign aides to shape his populist message, but
ended his flirtation last week with a softer line on immigration policies to
attract more moderate voters opposed to the deportation of millions of
undocumented immigrants living in the United States. He instead told cheering
supporters, "There will be no legal status or becoming a citizen of the
United States by illegally entering our country."
Trump, a one-time television reality show host, said that if he is
elected, he would immediately deport several million undocumented immigrants
convicted of crimes in the United States and start construction of a wall along
the U.S.-Mexican border and force Mexico to pay for it. But he left unclear how
he plans to deal with millions of other immigrants who have not committed any
crimes other than entering the U.S. illegally.
Despite Clinton's narrowed national lead in the political polls, she
continues to hold an edge over Trump in key states. U.S. presidential elections
are not decided by a national popular vote, but rather in state-by-state
contests, with each state's importance in the outcome weighted according to its
population.
About 40 of the 50 U.S. states traditionally vote for Republican or
Democratic U.S. presidential candidates, with the remaining states highly
contested from one election to the next.
CBS News said Sunday its polling showed Clinton with an advantage in two
battleground states, the eastern state of Pennsylvania by a 45-to-37 percent
margin, and in the mid-Atlantic state of North Carolina, by a 46-42 edge.
Clinton and Trump have campaigned in both states numerous times, with both
realizing their importance to overall national outcome.
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