Donald Trump sued by two states over business links

US election polls: Republicans continue to abandon Trump

11 October

Donald Trump's campaign seems to be in serious danger after more Republicans turned their back on him in an apparent bid to limit electoral damage in the congressional races.

Trump has been under pressure since the end of last week, when leaked footage from Access Hollywood showed him boasting about groping women.

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He gave a stronger than expected performance in Sunday night's presidential debate, but that couldn't stop Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House of Representatives, announcing on Monday that he would no longer defend his party's nominee.

Ryan's decision was a "clear signal party leaders are giving up hope of winning the White House" and illustrated how much they are "fretting their nominee is jeopardising their control of the Senate and even the House", says the Financial Times.

The first nationwide poll carried out since the Access Hollywood video was released "showed the extent of the damage", adds the newspaper. Clinton took an 11-point lead in the NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey, a number that swelled to 14 points without third-party candidates.

According to RealClearPolitics data, this is the Democrat's largest lead in a national poll since the beginning of August.

Criticism has also come from former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and 2008 Republican nominee John McCain, who said Trump's behaviour made it "impossible to continue to offer even conditional support for his candidacy".

Rice, meanwhile, said the businessman "should not be president" and "should withdraw".

Even Trump's running mate, Mike Pence, said he was "offended by [his] words and actions" and could not condone or defend them.

The tape was a "breaking point" for many in the GOP, says the New York Times, yet Trump insists he would "never drop out of this race in a million years".

US election polls: Narrow lead for Clinton in 'muddled' second debate

10 October

Hillary Clinton has edged further ahead in the polls following her second televised presidential debate with Donald Trump – but not by much.

A YouGov poll of 812 registered voters puts her on 47 per cent to her Republican rival's 42 per cent, an increase of one percentage point for the Democrat.

Trump went on the attack at the debate, which featured questions from audience members, and accused Clinton of covering up her husband Bill's own sexual history. He also told viewers she should be in jail over her email server scandal.

Clinton punched back, notably with jabs at newly released audio footage of Trump making aggressive sexual comments about women, but most commentators felt it was a much closer affair than the first debate in New York last month.

"A muddled mess," was the verdict of Anthony Zercher at the BBC.

Continuing the campaign's long-standing trend, men and women came away with significantly different views on the two candidates' performance. Half of the women surveyed thought Clinton came out on top, while only 38 per cent said Trump was the winner. Among men, these figures were 43 per cent and 46 per cent respectively.

Clinton also claimed a narrow lead among the crucial demographic of undecided voters, 44 per cent of whom thought she performed better than her rival, compared to 41 per cent who were more impressed with Trump.

CNN's poll of debate viewers came out even more strongly in favour of the former US secretary of state, with 57 per cent of those surveyed calling the debate a Clinton victory and 34 per cent identifying Trump as the winner.

The figures indicate a "strong showing" for Clinton, but CNN says the result is "not as good as her performance at the first presidential debate, when 62 per cent of debate watchers said she won".

US election polls: Hillary Clinton 'has an 80% chance of winning'

6 October

Hillary Clinton has an 80 per cent chance of winning the presidential race, according to extensive analysis of state and national polls conducted by the New York Times.

The Democratic candidate is currently only four points ahead of her Republican rival Donald Trump in average national polling, with 48.1 per cent to his 44.2. But the New York Times analysis takes into account ratings from other news organisations, as well as betting odds.

The former secretary of state has seen a huge surge in her chances of making it to the White House in the last week, jumping by ten per cent after her strong performance in the last presidential debate.

She is also gaining ground in key swing states, including Florida and Pennsylvania.

Although pundits widely agreed that Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence put on a better performance than rival Tim Kaine in this week's debate, it has done little for Trump in the polls.

The next defining moment for the businessman's bid to become president will be this Sunday's debate.

"Republicans have been on edge since Trump's uneven first debate and his erratic behaviour in the aftermath of that performance," says the New York Times.

"His party could start to distance themselves from him if he falters again on Sunday out of concern that their hopes of maintaining control in Congress could be on shaky ground," the newspaper adds.

Trump, however, appears unfazed by his poor performance in the national polls, sharing individual surveys on Twitter that put him ahead in some states.

But yet another gaffe committed by the property tycoon yesterday is unlikely to improve those figures. Speaking at a rally in Nevada, he urged terminally ill people to stay alive long enough to vote for him.

"I don't care how sick you are. I don't care if you just came back from the doctor and he gave you the worst possible prognosis, meaning it's over. Doesn't matter. Hang out till November 8."

Trump added: "I say kiddingly, but I mean it."

US election polls: Clinton celebrates post-debate lead

4 October

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton appears to have impressed the US public with her performance in last week's televised debate, with polls showing a boost in support for her campaign.

Average national polling gives the former US secretary of state 48.1 per cent of the vote, while Republican Donald Trump has dipped to 44.3 per cent. On the day of the debate last week, a little more than two points separated them.

An individual CNN/ORC poll revealed a slightly smaller gap, with 47 per cent backing Clinton, 42 per cent behind Trump, Libertarian Gary Johnson at seven per cent and the Green Party's Jill Stein at two per cent.

Most political pundits applauded the Democrat's composed and well-rehearsed performance during the event and agreed she looked the most presidential of the two candidates.

This week's allegations that Trump may not have paid tax for nearly two decades are unlikely to impress voters and could hit the Republican hard in the next round of polling.

"Clinton has even gained somewhat among white [people] without college degrees, who have been among Trump's most ardent supporters," says CNN.

The Democrat has also "narrowed Trump's edge" with her position on crucial issues such as the economy, foreign policy, immigration and improving life for racial and ethnic minorities, it adds.

However, the New York Times warns the Clinton camp shouldn't be popping the champagne corks yet as the billionaire businessman is still "within striking distance".

"It's a big swing, but not an uncommon one," the paper says. "The period after high-profile media events can often lead to big shifts in enthusiasm."

Nor is there a guarantee that this shift in support for Clinton will last. "Sometimes it's temporary, like a convention bounce," it says. "Other times, it's a longer-lasting shift in voter interest, which really does pick up ahead of an election."

US election polls: Can Farage give Trump the boost he needs?

3 October

Donald Trump has formally invited the ex-Ukip boss Nigel Farage to attend the next televised presidential debate in the US.

Farage and Ukip have both denied allegations that the British politician has been coaching the billionaire businessman for his next bout against his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

But speaking to CNN yesterday, Farage did offer the presidential candidate, whom he joined on the campaign trail and publicly endorsed at a rally in Mississippi, some informal advice.

"Don't let [Clinton] get under your skin," Farage said. "Whatever abuse she throws at you, ignore her. Don't defend yourself, there's no point, there isn't time. What you've gotta do, Donald, is talk to people, sitting at home in their living rooms. Don't get involved in a cat fight with Hillary."

The Republican has cast his candidacy in the same light as the Brexit campaign, says the Washington Examiner. "He has lauded voters who cast their ballot to leave the EU, saying that they 'took their country back' and that Americans are ready to do the same by voting for him," it adds.

Farage has also repeatedly made the link between Brexit and a possible Trump victory, comparing polls that predicted the Remain campaign would win to surveys putting Clinton ahead.

He claimed that the polling system in Europe was "almost bankrupt" in terms of its reputation and suggested the same might be true in the US.

"What I'm talking about is the polling companies find it really hard to find people who are outside of politics and who are now coming into politics," he said.

But will the man who helped pull Britain out of the European Union be an asset or a liability to Trump?

Just a single point separated the two candidates three weeks ago, but Clinton has regained her lead and average national polling currently gives her 47.5 per cent of the vote, with Trump on 45.

"Critics say both Trump and Farage have massaged fears over immigration for political advantage," Reuters reports.

"Farage said he and Trump shared a common touch that allows them to connect with voters alienated from traditional politics," it adds.

US election polls: Has Donald Trump blown it in first debate?

29 September

Political experts declared Hillary Clinton the winner after the first televised presidential debate on Monday - and that assessment is borne out by the latest poll of voters.

Slightly less than half of people questioned in the Politico/Morning Consult survey - 49 per cent - said Clinton had won the first bout, while 26 per cent gave Republican Donald Trump victory. A quarter of those polled were undecided.

Perceptions of each candidate's performance tended to conform to the respondents' political allegiances, although Republicans were more likely to declare the former US secretary of state the winner than Democrats to declare victory for her businessman rival.

"It's a clear victory for Clinton," says Morning Consult pollsters, "and it comes as both national and state polls have tightened over the past few weeks."

A third of those questioned (34 per cent) said debate performance would be very important in how they vote, while 29 per cent said it would be "somewhat important".

Almost one in ten - nine per cent - said the clash had changed the way they would vote.

"Before the debate, Trump led Clinton by 1 point in the four-way race," says Morning Consult. "But Clinton now leads Trump by 3 points (41 per cent to 38 per cent), and in a head-to-head scenario she leads by 4 points."

An LA Times/USC tracking poll has Trump leading by four points, a lead roughly twice the size it was at the end of last week. However, as New York magazine Daily Intelligencer points out, it includes only one day of post-debate polling and "has also been a pro-Trump outlier for the entire cycle", so it may not tell us much about the effect of Monday's contest.

The latest RealClearPolitics average of polls puts the Democratic nominee three points ahead of her rival in a head-to-head vote.

US election polls: Has Donald Trump blown his chances?

28 September

There was almost unanimous agreement that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton came out top after this week's televised debate against Republican rival Donald Trump.

"Democrats woke up on Monday to a spate of bad polls for Hillary Clinton," Nate Silver writes for FiveThirtyEight. "They had reason to go to bed feeling a lot better."

A snap poll conducted by CNN after the debate showed 62 per cent of viewers thought the former US secretary of state won, compared to just 27 per cent who considered the Republican performed better.

Average national polling, however, paints a slightly different picture of the presidential race.

The day before the debate, the RealClearPolitics tracker showed Clinton had 46.5 per cent of the vote, with the billionaire businessman behind with 43.4.

The latest poll results, from Tuesday, say Trump had gained a small margin of support, but was still more than two points behind, with Clinton on 46.6 per cent to his 44.3. Last week, less than a point separated the pair. However, pollsters warn it takes several days before "reliable, post-debate polls" are released.

Silver predicts Clinton could go from a "fairly uncomfortable position in the Electoral College to a fairly comfortable one" and could soon emerge with a three to four-point lead.

"Of course, there's not necessarily any guarantee she'd hold on to those gains - Romney didn't in 2012," he adds.

There are other indicators that Clinton could see a significant boost in national support, Silver argues.

"In addition to the polls, a variety of post-debate indicators implied a Clinton win, including focus groups, betting markets, and the post-debate coverage on television networks," he says.

"TV coverage matters because the pundits' reaction doesn’t always match that of voters in instant polls and it's sometimes the TV spin that wins out."

US election polls: How will the latest attacks affect the vote?

19 September

Analysts are watching closely to see if the knife and bomb attacks will have any impact on the US presidential election campaign.

The atrocities have seen nearly 30 people injured when a bomb was detonated in the Chelsea district of Manhattan, New York, a pipe bomb explode at a charity race in New Jersey, luckily causing no injuries, and eight people wounded in a knife attack at a Minnesota shopping mall.

While Islamic State has laid claim to the stabbings, authorities have so far found no links between the bombings and international terror organisations.

The attacks "could have important implications for the presidential election campaign", says the Financial Times. The threat of Islamist terrorism has so far been a dominant theme but the "risk of domestic terrorism has gone largely undiscussed", says the newspaper.

They come as Republican nominee Donald Trump closes in on his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the polls. Her lead of nearly eight points at the beginning of August has fallen to less than one point, according to the polls of national polls on RealClearPolitics.

John Avlon, the editor-in-chief of the Daily Beast, says the US has "no template for the impact of an attack just before an American election".

However, he says he has long been concerned about an "outside X-Factor event suddenly changing the emotional calculus of the electorate in ways that we would later regret". Terrorism has always seemed the "prime known-unknown", he adds, and Trump "rarely loses an opportunity to exploit terror".

Indeed, while Clinton urged caution and patience, her Republican counterpart declared the explosion was caused by a bomb hours before police issued any confirmation. "Nobody knows exactly what's going on but, boy we are really in a time - we better get tough folks," he told a rally in Colorado on Saturday night.

Others point out Trump's campaign took a downward turn following his response to the deadly shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando in June, when he bragged he had predicted such an atrocity and claimed it justified his proposed ban on Muslims entering the US.

Nevertheless, Avlon believes this "dark trifecta of weekend incidents, one week after the anniversary of 9/11, all add to the drumbeat of anxiety which has driven many voters into the arms of Trump, someone they see as a strong man in chaotic times".

He concludes: "We'll need to steel ourselves and hope that Americans vote with their head as well as heart on 8 November."

US election polls: The chance of Trump winning is 'quite real'

15 September

There are now less than two percentage points separating the US presidential candidates, as the gap in the polls continues to narrow.

Hillary Clinton currently has 45.8 per cent of the vote, while Donald Trump is hot on her heels with 44 points, according to the national average calculated by Real Clear Politics.

The billionaire Republican has taken advantage of his rival's recent ill health and seen a surge of support in key battleground states across the country.

According to CNN, Trump is ahead of Clinton by a margin of up to five points in the two largest swing states – Ohio and Florida.

With less than two months to go until the election, these numbers should serve as a "wake-up call" to Americans, MSNBC reports.

"As things stand, Clinton is still widely seen as the favourite and the odds remain in her favour," it says.

"But there's also no denying the fact that the race has tightened and the possibility of Trump getting elected president is quite real."

Despite the strong polling numbers, voters are increasingly unhappy with both candidates and their performances, the New York Times reports.

"Among those who say they intend to vote for Trump or Clinton, slightly more than half express strong support," the paper adds.

"The rest say that they harbour reservations about their candidate, or that they are simply voting to thwart the other nominee."

So whoever is elected to the highest office of the United States in November is likely to be one of the most unpopular presidents in recent history.

US elections polls: Clinton continues to lose ground to Trump

14 September

Hillary Clinton has announced that she will resume campaigning tomorrow after she was diagnosed with pneumonia and advised to rest, but her ill health is continuing to have an impact on her rating in the polls.

Since the Democratic nominee collapsed at a 9/11 memorial service and news broke that she had been diagnosed with pneumonia days before, her average national polling figures have fallen from 46 per cent to 45.6, according to Real Clear Politics.

Her rival Donald Trump, meanwhile, has gained ground on the former secretary of state during the same period, from 42.9 per cent on Sunday to 43.5 today.

At the end of last month, Clinton was six points ahead of the billionaire and appeared to be the clear frontrunner in the race to the White House.

The billionaire uncharacteristically sent out a polite tweet wishing his opponent a speedy recovery after the news. However, he later referred to Clinton's email scandal as one that is "worse than Watergate".

This "bizarre dynamic" whereby incidents such as a relatively minor health complication for Clinton or yet another outlandish statement from Trump prompt a swing in the polls shows how the US presidential race does not include two "normal candidates", David Byler writes for RCP.

"Both candidates [are] being knocked around by relatively frequent, unpredictable scandals and controversies," he says. "[It] raises an interesting question: Where would the polls go if both Trump and Clinton were controversy-free for a few weeks?"

He argues that favourability ratings work in Clinton's favour. "Both nominees are historically unpopular, but Clinton has been consistently less unpopular than Trump," he says. "And according to a simple model I made, that difference in popularity pushes the equilibrium of the race away from a near-tie to slightly in her favour."

However, there are several caveats to his prediction, including a major shock or scandal on either side during the final weeks of the campaign.

"Events like this can shift the poll numbers temporarily, and a short-term shift in late October may not fully wear off before Election Day," he concludes.

US election polls: Gap narrows as Clinton health scare hits

12 September

With election day less than two months away, Hillary Clinton is just three points ahead of Donald Trump in a national "poll of polls", as she recovers from a bout of pneumonia that led her to cancel a campaign trip to California.

RealClearPolitics this morning gives the Democratic candidate for the US presidency 45.9 per cent, compared to her Republican rival's 42.9 per cent. Clinton was seven points ahead last month.

Her health has become an issue during the campaign – she even opened a jar of pickles on a late night talk show last month to prove her fitness for office – with rivals raising questions about a blood clot she had in 2012.

Yesterday, at a 9/11 event, she came close to collapse and had to leave early. Her doctor has now said she was diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday but is "recovering nicely" and has cancelled a two-day visit to California.

The new health scare is likely to have an impact on Clinton's poll ratings, says the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), but it is too early for the effect to be felt in the numbers yet.

Clinton's opinion poll lead has been narrowing for weeks, however, says the WSJ, after a summer in which her campaign team was so confident that "they didn't think Mrs Clinton needed to do much in the way of campaigning".

Since then, new documents have been released about her use of a private email server when she served under Obama – and there has been fresh coverage of her ties to donors.

Both stories play to the public perception that Clinton is not trustworthy – and, says the WSJ, so will the news that she had been diagnosed with pneumonia but had decided not to make it public.

After Clinton left the 9/11 event in New York, Trump stayed uncharacteristically silent. This morning, however, he told CNBC that Clinton's health scare was "quite sad" and said campaigning was "gruelling" work.

Insinuating once again that Clinton has a long-term health issue, Trump said he had been inspired by her illness to undergo a check-up and would release the results this week.

Trump has faced criticism for not releasing information about his own health in the past – just as he has for not releasing his tax record. Trump is 70 and Clinton is 68.

US election poll: Should Clinton be worried by Trump's lead?

7 September

Donald Trump has overtaken Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House, according to a new poll – but is this a canary in the coalmine or a skewed survey?

The Republican leads by 45 per cent to 43 per cent in a national CNN/ORC survey published on Tuesday. It shows the two candidates provoke large gaps by gender, age, race and education.

"The topsy-turvy campaign for the president has seen both Clinton and Trump holding a significant lead at some point in the last two months, though Clinton has topped Trump more often than not," says CNN.

So is this latest boost for Trump the result of his "minority outreach", which has seen him praise Mexican-Americans and speak warmly to the African-American community in recent days, asks CNBC's Jake Novak.

Yes, but not in the way many think. Such appeals in fact boost Trump's credentials among supposedly traditional Republicans and right-leaning moderates, who never wanted to vote for Clinton "and are just looking for a way out of an embarrassing predicament".

Most polls still give Clinton the edge in the key battleground states, so "Democrats have nothing to worry about", writes Jason Easley for the Politicus USA website. State polls matter more than the "meaningless" national popular vote, he explains, asking if the CNN survey is "a canary in the coal mine" or just a bad poll.

Elsewhere, Politicus suggests that CNN's poll is an outlier because it is based on a skewed sample reflecting an electorate with more Republicans than Democrats. It quotes the view of NBC political analyst Chuck Todd that the survey "assumes an electorate we've never seen before".

US election polls: Trump closes gap on Clinton – what does it mean?

5 September

With little over two months before the US presidential election, polls show that Republican Donald Trump is closing the gap on Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival.

The RealClear Politics average of recent polls puts Clinton 3.9 per cent ahead, while Morning Consult's new survey shows her just two points ahead, down five points in three weeks.

Meanwhile the Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll has the race as a tie, and new Los Angeles Times research actually puts Trump two points ahead.

But commentators are divided over the significance of the numbers. Morning Consult explains Trump's surge by suggesting that despite last week's furore over his mixed message on immigration, the public is in fact worried about other things.

Or perhaps the bar that defines a Trump success is now set so low that he can make the sort of contradictory speeches he did in Mexico and Arizona and get away with it, suggests Politico. If so, it could bode well for him on 26 September, the date of the first presidential debate.

Analyst Larry Sabato tells Reuters that the narrowing of the gap is "completely natural" and that support for Clinton has inevitably declined after the substantial bounce she enjoyed in the wake of the Democratic convention.

For Slate, Daniel Politi points out that Clinton holds decisive leads in two of the key battleground states that Trump needs to win. National polls are "pretty meaningless" when it comes to predicting a presidential election that is not decided by popular vote, says Politi.