Poll: Hillary Clinton Has Just Jumped 10 Points Ahead of Trump

Hillary Clinton has scrambled past GOP rival Donald Trump to secure a 10 point lead in the run up to November’s general election, pollsters have claimed.

Trump’s sharp drop in support follows a week of campaign turmoil. The presumed Republican nominee has faced a barrage of sharp internal criticisms, allegations of racism, and the introduction of a formidable third-party candidate.

According to researchers at Reuters/Ipsos, just 34.7 percent of likely voters are now planning to cast a vote for Trump in November. By contrast, 44.3 percent told pollsters they would be supporting Clinton.

Among registered voters only, Clinton’s lead is even more formidable. She boasts 49.5 percent of all registered voters, compared to Trump’s 35.9 percent. Tuesday’s poll also found that Clinton is now the more popular choice among both men and women.

That said, it’s worth pointing out that a large slice of the electorate have been left disenfranchised by the two candidates, with 20.9 percent of the 1,261 individuals surveyed saying they did not want to vote for either candidate.

The poll was conducted from Friday to Tuesday – beginning immediately after Trump tumbled into yet another onslaught of racism allegations.

Last week, the real estate mogul unleashed a flurry of anger after launching a misguided attack at U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel.

Curiel is overseeing the case against the ill-fated Trump University, which was a real estate education venture Trump launched in 2005. Since shutting its doors in 2010, two class action lawsuits alleging fraud have been filed against the defunct institution.

Yet according to Trump, Curiel should not be allowed near the case because of his Mexican heritage. After issuing plenty of outlandish attacks relating to Mexican-Americans, the presumed GOP nominee now believes Curiel is unfit to do the job because he will be biased in the case because of Trump’s supposed politics.

That opinion hasn’t generated a lot of support among Republicans.

On Tuesdsay, House Speaker Paul Ryan said that Trump’s statements were “the textbook definition of a racist comment” and assured reporters that he completely rejected the comments.

Meanwhile, outspoken South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham told The New York Times that Republicans should drop their support for Trump as a result of the controversy. Graham even went so far as to insinuate that he now believes Hillary Clinton has emerged as the more suitable choice for president.

“This is the most un-American thing from a politician since Joe McCarthy,” he said on Trump’s comments. “If anybody was looking for an off-ramp, this is probably it. There’ll come a time when the love of country will trump hatred of Hillary.”

Trump has since attempted to do a bit of damage control, and he pledged he would stop talking about his perceived dislike of Curiel. But according to Tuesday night’s poll, it looks like the damage has already been done.

Clinton’s surge in support represents a stark contrast from data collected by Reuters at the start of May. Pollsters had previously placed the former Secretary of State in a statistical dead-heat with the former reality TV star. Yet Trump’s support has started to wither in recent weeks.

According to Tuesday’s results, Clinton is even more popular than Trump within his own party. Of all likely Republican voters surveyed, 47.5 percent told researchers they would be supporting Clinton in November. By contrast, 34.4 percent of GOP voters said they plan to back Trump.

Likewise, of those who voted for Republican Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential contest, 48.5 percent told pollsters they will be voting Democrat in this year’s general election. Trump trails Clinton in this demographic with just 36.6 percent of the vote.

[Photo by Scott Eisen/Getty Images]