Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump in new poll, but Trump is rated more honest

Hillary Clinton has lost ground against Donald Trump in a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Wednesday night, but she still leads him by 6 percentage points in a four-way race, winning 43 percent of likely voters versus 37 percent for Trump, 9 percent for Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson, and 3 percent for the Green Party's Jill Stein. In a head-to-head race, Clinton leads Trump by 7 points, 48 percent to 41 percent. This is the first NBC/WSJ poll to include likely voters; among registered voters, Clinton leads Trump by 5 points in a four-way race and by 7 points in a two-way contest — both numbers are down for Clinton since August.

On the issues, voters prefer Trump on the economy, 46 percent to 41 percent, but Clinton comes out on top with every other issue polled: Being in charge of America's nukes, good commander in chief, immigration, and terrorism and homeland security. She is also seen as more knowledgeable and experienced (60 percent to 23 percent) and with a better temperament to be president (56 percent to 23 percent). On the other hand, Trump is seen as more honest and straightforward by 10 points, 41 percent to 31 percent.

Trump voters are slightly more enthusiastic about the election, 78 percent versus 75 percent of Clinton voters, the poll found, but 68 percent of Clinton supporters said they will "definitely" vote for her, 2 points higher than among Trump voters. And while half of Clinton backers are mostly voting for her (versus 44 percent voting against Trump), more Trump voters are anti-Clinton (51 percent) than pro-Trump (41 percent). "Despite arguably the worst few weeks of her candidacy, the fundamentals still point toward a Hillary Clinton victory," said Democratic pollster Fred Yang, who conducted the poll with GOP pollster Bill McInturff. McInturff pointed to the good news for Trump: "The electorate narrowly agrees with him that America has lost ground and wants to see a change in direction."

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The poll was conducted Sept. 16-19 with 1,000 registered voters with landline phones and cellphones; the margin of error for registered voters is ±3.1 percentage points and for likely voters, ±3.2 points. You can read the granular details or more highlights at NBC News.