White Voters Boosting Donald Trump’s Florida Chances: Poll

LOUDONVILLE, NY — South Florida’s massive Democratic voting bloc may not be enough to hand Hillary Clinton a Sunshine State victory come November. According to a poll released Monday, businessman Donald Trump is running neck-and-neck with the former secretary of state largely thanks to white voters.

The New York Times Upshot/ Siena College Florida Poll was released Monday. Clinton led the poll with 41 percent of the vote to Trump’s 40 in a four-way race. Libertarian candidate, former Gov. Gary Johnson, garnered 9 percent of the vote in the poll, with Green Party candidate Jill Stein only taking 2 percent.

“Trump has as large a lead among Republicans (78 points) as Clinton does with Democrats (77 points) and independents are evenly split at 34 percent for Trump and 32 percent for Clinton with 18 percent for Johnson,” Siena College poll director Don Levy said in a statement. Men tend to lean toward Trump with women favoring Clinton, he added.

When it comes down to geographical regions, Trump leads in the Tampa Bay area, the central part of the state and the northern regions. Clinton gains support from the southeast part of the state with the southwest still a toss-up, Levy said.

“There is not only a significant gender gap in this race, but also large racial divides,” Levy said. “Trump is up 51 to 30 percent among white voters, while Clinton has a commanding 82-4 percent lead with African-Americans and 61-21 percent among Hispanics/Latinos.”

When it comes to favorability ratings in the Sunshine State, neither presidential candidate fared well. Clinton was given a 40 percent favorability rating, with 53 percent of respondents saying they view her in an unfavorable light. Trump’s ratings were even worse, with only 39 percent of likely voters saying they viewed him favorably; 55 percent gave him an unfavorable rating.

Florida is of interest to national pollsters because of its status as one of three major swing states, along with Pennsylvania and Ohio. No candidate has won a presidential race without taking two of the three swing states since 1960.

While the poll shows Clinton’s lead in Florida has evaporated, the Times contends she “has a solid chance of a knockout blow in Florida.” Should she earn the victory, Trump would have a difficult road to the White House, the paper predicts.

The Florida poll is trending with what pollsters are also seeing on the national level. As of Monday, RealClear Politics’ average showed Clinton with a 0.9 percent lead over Trump in a four-way race.

The New York Times Upshot/ Siena College poll was conducted between Sept. 10-14 by telephone among 867 likely voters in Florida. Calls were made in both English and Spanish to both cell phones and landlines. The survey’s calls were made to a “stratified weighted sample of voters from the L-2 voter list” with a likely-to-vote probability computed for each respondent based on their responses and their past voting behavior “applied to their specific voting history,” Siena College explained.

To find out more about the poll, visit Siena College online.

Images via Gage Skidmore, Flickr/Creative Commons