A.G. Gancarski
A University of North Florida poll released Thursday shows the race too close to call between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
The two-way number has Clinton at 46 percent and Trump at 44 percent, with a margin of error of 3.39 percent.
In a four-way race including Libertarian Gary Johnson and the Green Party’s Jill Stein, Clinton barely outperforms that margin of error.
Clinton leads the four-way with 43 percent, followed by Trump at 39 percent, Johnson at 6 percent, and Stein at 2 percent; 9 percent of voters remain undecided.
UNF ‘s Public Opinion Research Lab conducted the four-way survey via live calls from Oct. 20-25.
“There is almost no change from our poll in early October in which Clinton led Trump by three percentage points, 41 – 38, in the four-way contest, but the head-to-head results have tightened considerably,” said Dr. Michael Binder, faculty director of the Public Opinion Research Laboratory.
“This poll has an even distribution of Democrats and Republicans,” Binder said. But, he added, “in this election, Democrats are outperforming their historical norms in absentee and early voting. If this trend continues through Election Day, Clinton could expand this margin and easily win Florida.”
There are patterns in the data that could encourage both Clinton and Trump partisans.
Thirteen percent of Republicans support Clinton, whereas 9 percent of Democrats back Trump.
However, with NPA voters, Trump leads Clinton 38 to 35 percent.
Fifteen percent of NPA voters are, as of this survey, committed to Johnson (11 percent) and Stein (4 percent).
Efforts to budge those NPAs toward major party candidates will be worth watching down the stretch.
