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Poll: Hillary Clinton extends lead over Trump to 9 points in Florida

Posted at 4:49 PM, Aug 16, 2016
and last updated 2016-08-16 16:49:55-04

Hillary Clinton has built a 9-point lead over Donald Trump in Florida, according to a poll released Tuesday, owing to her advantage among minorities and white women in the state.

The survey from Monmouth University found Clinton with the support of 48% of likely voters in the important swing state, compared with 39% for Trump. Libertarian Gary Johnson nets support from 6% of Florida voters.

Among Hispanic, black and Asian voters — a collective bloc that comprises a third of Florida’s electorate — the poll found Clinton with a massive lead over Trump, 69% to 19%.

The poll showed that although Trump has a lead among white voters in Florida — 51% to 37% — Clinton benefits from a gender split. Trump leads big among white men, 64% to 24%, while Clinton holds a 10-point edge among white women, 49% to 39%.

And Trump is faring worse among the state’s white voters than Mitt Romney, who carried the group by 24 points in his 2012 race against Barack Obama.

It is yet more grim polling news for Trump, who has endured a rough stretch of the campaign after accepting the Republican presidential nomination in Cleveland last month.

Since then, poll after poll has shown Clinton with widening leads both nationally and in crucial swing states. A Washington Post poll of Virginia also out Tuesday showed Clinton up 14 points among registered voters, and 8 points among likely voters.

Despite those poll numbers in the head-to-head matchup, the former secretary of state continues to display her own vulnerabilities as a candidate.

The Monmouth poll found that only 36% of Florida voters have a favorable opinion of Clinton, while 50% have an unfavorable opinion. That’s only slightly better than Trump fared in the poll: 33% of voters there said they have a favorable impression of the GOP nominee, while 54% said they view him unfavorably.

Monmouth conducted the poll August 12-15, using phone interviews with 402 likely Florida voters. It has a margin of error of 4.9 percentage points.