Hillary Clinton maintained a comfortable lead over Donald Trump among likely voters, according to a Fox News poll released Tuesday evening.
In a four-way race, the Democratic nominee received 45 percent, while the Republican candidate took 39 percent in the Oct. 15-17 survey. Although the billionaire businessman still trails the former secretary of state, he gained 1 point following the second presidential debate. Clinton broke even.
Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson fell from 7 percent to 5 percent. Green Party nominee Jill Stein remained at 3 percent.
Johnson and Stein supporters divided evenly between Clinton and Trump when respondents were polled between the two main-party candidates. Clinton had a 7-point advantage over Trump, taking in just under 50 percent. Trump also gained 1 point in that matchup since last week’s poll.
But Trump’s victory in the latest poll came from independent voters. From Oct. 10-12, independents were evenly split between Clinton and Trump, 35 percent each. In the latest Fox poll, Trump had a 7-point lead over Clinton among middle-of-the-road voters, taking 38 percent of independents. Clinton dropped to 31 percent.
The two candidates will meet in Las Vegas Wednesday night for the third and final presidential debate, moderated by Fox News anchor Chris Wallace.
The poll was conducted by landline and cellphone interviews with more than 1,000 likely voters across the country. The national voter questions had a 3 percent margin of error and the independent questions had a 7-point margin of error.
