Stop the presses: Republican Donald Trump is now leading Hillary Clinton, 46 percent to 45 percent, in the Washington Post presidential tracking poll.
Trump is up by 1 percent, well within the margin of error, but an enormous boost to his campaign that has been behind Clinton in the media giant’s past polling.
He has never led Clinton in the paper’s tracking poll, dating to June.
Driving the shakeup, said the Post, appears to be sustained excitement for Trump and a dipping enthusiasm for Clinton, not the recent FBI decision to revive its probe of her email scandal.
From the Post:
The tracking poll finds little shift in Clinton’s overall support following news of the FBI’s renewed look at Clinton e-mails, but strong enthusiasm among her supporters fell behind Trump in combined Saturday and Sunday interviews. By 53 to 43 percent, more Trump supporters say they are “very enthusiastic” about him, compared with Thursday and Friday when Trump’s edge was negligible (53 percent vs. 51 percent).
Voter enthusiasm has been in short supply for both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump through the fall campaign and continues to lag excitement about candidates on the ballot four years ago. At this point in 2012, 64 percent of Obama supporters said they were “very enthusiastic” about him; Romney was only narrowly behind at 61 percent.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
