Trump begins edging ahead of Hillary in small polls

WASHINGTON: A small, methodologically dodgy poll showed Donald Trump leading Hillary Clinton 42-37 as the US voters' preferred White House occupant, even as the country's illuminati continued to rail against the billionaire Republican candidate and his maverick ways. A respected pundit warned his candidature was “perilous to the Republic,“ and presaged the arrival of fascism in America.
Trump supporters mean while celebrated a minor poll that showed their leader gaining ground against a ragged Democratic field. The Rasmussen Reports' weekly White House Watch survey , which polls 1000 likely voters, showed Trump had extended his lead over Clinton by five points from the last poll, where he had a 41-39 lead within the +3 margin of error.

A separate Fox News poll showed Trump beating Clinton 45-42, the lead within poll's 3-point margin of error.

The first poll, conducted over telephone, also showed that 13% of voters prefer someone other than the two candidates, while 7% are undecided. Amid talk of a gender gap in the race, the poll indicated Clinton has a bigger problem with men than Trump does with women. Trump leads by 22 points among men, compared to Clinton's 11-point advantage among women. Those under 40 favour Clinton, while others prefer Trump by double-digit margins.

Trump now gets 76% of the Republican vote, while Clinton has 72% Democratic support. Thirteen percent of Democrats prefer Trump, while 9% of GOP voters favour Clinton. Among voters not affiliated with either major party , Trump leads 41% to 28%, but 31% of these voters either like another candidate or are undecided.

Although the polls are largely inconsequential in a presidential election where winning 270 Electoral votes by bagging states is more important than nationwide popular votes, they serve to show Trump gaining broader support across the country.

“The entire Trump phenomenon has nothing to do with policy or ideology... (he) has transcended the party that produced him,“ wrote Robert Kagan, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “What Trump offers his followers...is an attitude, an aura of crude strength and machismo, a boasting disrespect for the niceties of the democratic culture that he claims, and his followers believe, has produced national weakness and incompetence.“

“This is how fascism comes to America, not with jackboots and salutes but with a TV huckster, a phony billionaire, a textbook egomaniac tapping into popular resentments and insecurities,“ he warned. Similar dire prognostications are coming from the left and center even as the GOP has begun to cave before the Trump juggernaut on the right.

On Wednesday , Trump announced his list of eleven possible nominees for the U.S Supreme Court, packed with conservative justices, in an effort to broaden his appeal across the GOP spectrum.