Hillary Clinton maintains 6-point lead in new poll, unchanged from before FBI letter

Hilary Clinton, still winning in the polls

(Image credit: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)

Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump by 6 percentage points, 45 percent to 39 percent, in a new Reuters/Ipsos poll of likely voters released late Wednesday. Clinton's lead rises to 8 points when Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein are included, with Clinton staying put at 45 percent but Trump losing 2 points. The poll was conducted Oct. 28 to Nov. 1, mostly after FBI Director James Comey's letter to Congress on potentially new Clinton emails, and Clinton's 6-point lead is the same as before Comey's curveball, though both candidates gained 2 points. The online poll involved 1,772 likely voters and has a credibility interval of 3 points.

The Reuters result was better for Clinton than an ABC News/Washington Post poll Wednesday that found Clinton and Trump tied, and more bullish than many of the polling averages: RealClearPolitics has Clinton up 1.7 points in a two-way race, Huffington Post/Pollster has Clinton up 48 percent to 42 percent, and FiveThirtyEight's polling average has Clinton up 48.5 percent to 45.2 percent, with a 67.7 percent chance of winning. Wednesday was "one of those glass-half-empty, glass-half-full days" for Clinton, says FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver. She's "holding onto leads in her 'firewall' states, which are sufficient to win the Electoral College. On the other hand, Clinton's leads are narrower than they were a few weeks ago, and any further tightening — or a modest polling error in Trump's favor — could put her campaign in jeopardy."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.