Hillary Clinton has retaken the lead in Nevada, a western swing state that has become a must-win for Donald Trump, according to the latest Monmouth University poll.
The former secretary of state trailed Trump by 2 points last month, but recent gains among young, non-white voters have since propelled her to a 7-point lead over the Republican presidential nominee. Forty-seven percent of likely voters in the Silver State now back Clinton, 40 percent support Trump and 7 percent intend to vote for Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson.
Despite the latest controversies surrounding her charitable foundation and lucrative paid speeches to Wall Street banks, Clinton’s support among non-white voters in Nevada has risen 4 percentage points since September. She has also pulled ahead of Trump among voters age 50 and under, having gained 14 points since last month.
Clinton and Trump were previously running neck-and-neck among the under-50 demographic at 41 and 40 percent support, respectively.
The GOP nominee continues to carry a sizable lead among white voters in the diverse battleground state, edging Clinton by 15 percentage points among white men and 12 percentage points among white women.
As Trump prepares for his third and final debate against Clinton on Wednesday night, the same poll finds that most voters in Nevada do not believe he is temperamentally fit to be president. Fifty-six percent say Clinton has the right temperament to be commander in chief, compared to just 35 percent who say the same of her Republican opponent.
In the race to replace outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Republican Congressman Joe Heck leads Nevada’s Democratic Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto 45 to 42 percent. Heck holds a 19-point edge among white voters, while Cortez Masto maintains her lead among minority voters in her home state.
Heck was one of several GOP lawmakers to withdraw his endorsement of Trump after the billionaire was caught making sexually explicit comments about women in an audio tape from 2005. Forty-one percent of Trump fans in Nevada responded to Heck’s decision in the latest poll by accusing him of not lending enough support to his party’s nominee.
The Monmouth University survey of 413 Nevada voters was conducted between Oct. 14-17, two days before the final presidential debate in Las Vegas. Result contain a margin of error plus or minus 4.8 percentage points.
