Donald Trump faces a 12-point gap with Hillary Clinton in the latest Monmouth University poll of likely voters nationwide, after sexual assault allegations and audio of him making lewd comments about women battered his image.
Clinton leads her Republican opponent 50 to 38 percent in the final three weeks before Election Day, with 5 percent of voters backing Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson and 2 percent backing the Green Party’s Jill Stein. Clinton carried a narrow 4-point lead over Trump at the end of September.
The poll was conducted after Trump and Clinton faced off in the second presidential debate and in the middle of the Republican presidential nominee’s war against nearly a dozen women who have accused him of touching them inappropriately without their consent, presumably leading to a decline in the percentage of voters who have a positive opinion of him.
According to the poll, 62 percent of likely voters believe the allegations of sexual assault against Trump to be true. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of Clinton supporters (87 percent) believe the allegations are true, while 60 percent of independents also think they are true. Only 29 percent of Trump supporters think the accusations are.
The allegations started trickling out after leaked video emerged of Trump making lewd remarks about women. Fifty-eight percent of those polled said they were not surprised by the remarks from Trump.
While Clinton’s personal favorability rating varies only slightly from where it stood last month, the percentage of voters who view Trump unfavorably has increased by 4 percentage points from 57 to 61 percent.
The poll of 726 likely voters was conducted from Oct. 14-16, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percent.
Overall, Clinton maintains a sizable 6.3-point lead over the real estate mogul, according to the latest RealClearPolitics polling average.
