Hillary Clinton takes 8-point lead over Donald Trump in national poll

Hillary Clinton visits a campaign office in Seattle — (Image credit: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)

A new national George Washington University Battleground poll released Monday has Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump by 8 percentage points, 47 percent to 39 percent, among likely voters in a four-way race including Libertarian Gary Johnson, at 8 percent, and Green nominee Jill Stein at 2 percent. In the same poll in September, Clinton led Trump by just 2 points, 42 percent to 40 percent. The poll was conducted Oct. 8-13, after Trump's Access Hollywood lewd hot-mic comments about forcing himself on women, the second presidential debate, and the first women came forward to accuse Trump of groping them.

Clinton gained significant ground over Trump on several issues, including taxes (52-41 percent, a 10-point gain) and foreign affairs (60-33 percent, a 12-point gain), though both candidates remain pretty unpopular — 53 percent view Clinton unfavorably versus 45 percent who view her favorably, while Trump's numbers are 61 percent unfavorable, 36 percent favorable. "Read together, these poll results indicate that increasing numbers of voters are accepting the Hillary Clinton/Democratic Party frame of this election as a referendum on Donald Trump's unfitness for the presidency," said GW's Michael Cornfield.

Two other national polls on Sunday showed Clinton leading by 11 points (WSJ/NBC) and 4 points (Washington Post/ABC), the latter within the margin of error. In the GW Battleground poll, a hefty 62 percent of voters say they think Clinton will win, including 27 percent of Trump voters, 72 percent of Johnson voters, 64 percent of Stein voters, and 89 percent of Clinton voters. Other forecasts are more bullish for Clinton — Reuters/Ipsos gives her a 95 percent chance if the election were held this week, while FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver gives Clinton an 83-86 percent chance and 6-7 point lead. The GW Battleground poll contacted 1,000 registered voters and has a margin of error of ±3.1 percentage points.

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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.