A Bloomberg Politics poll released Tuesday afternoon shows Hillary Clinton has opened up a double-digit lead over presumed Republican nominee Donald Trump, thanks to strong support among women and a lopsided gap among minorities.
The poll had Mrs. Clinton, who clinched the Democratic nomination last week, as the choice of 49 percent of likely voters in November, compared to just 37 percent for Mr. Trump.
Reflecting the deep unpopularity of both major-party candidates, but especially Mr. Trump, Libertarian Gary Johnson also polled surprisingly strongly, as the choice of 9 percent of voters — 10 times the share he achieved in the 2012 race, which was already a Libertarian record.
According to Bloomberg, Mrs. Clinton had the support of 57 percent of women, 58 percent of single people, and an overwhelming 77 percent of non-white voters.
Some other “internals” in the poll suggest that Mrs. Clinton’s 12-point lead is not likely to change much, as people’s opinions about both major-party candidates already have hardened.
The 63 percent who said Mr. Trump was not their first choice broke down as — 55 percent saying they’d never vote for Mr. Trump, 7 percent saying they could imagine doing so, and 1 percent were unsure.
Bad as those numbers are, Mrs. Clinton’s weren’t a whole lot better. The 51 percent who don’t back her were also overwhelmingly (43 percent of the whole sample) people who said they’d never vote for her, with 6 percent saying they might and 2 percent unsure.
According to Bloomberg, the surveys taken earlier this month that showed the race much closer were taken both before Mrs. Clinton had secured a majority of the delegates at the Democratic convention and before the last week of news coverage, much of which centered on Mr. trump suggesting a U.S.-born judge might be biased against him because his parents were Mexicans.
“Clinton has a number of advantages in this poll, in addition to her lead,” pollster J. Ann Selzer, who oversaw the survey, told Bloomberg. “Her supporters are more enthusiastic than Trump’s and more voters overall see her becoming a more appealing candidate than say that for Trump.”
The survey of 1,000 adults, 750 of whom were categorized as likely voters, was taken Friday to Monday and had an error margin of 3.1 percentage points.
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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