A new poll shows Donald Trump is surging in Philly, with more than 1 in 5 likely voters in the city planning to vote for the GOP presidential nominee.
The poll, released this week and conducted by pollsters at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, shows 22 percent of respondents from Philadelphia plan to vote for Trump, while 67 percent would vote for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Of the respondents, 11 percent were still undecided.
There is a big caveat with these F&M poll results: Philadelphians only made up 8 percent of the 813 respondents. According to the most recent voter registration numbers provided by the Dept. of State, registered voters in Philadelphia make up 12.6 percent of registered voters statewide. The poll also showed 0 percent support in the city for libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.
But it does show Trump seems to be surging in Philadelphia, despite Clinton’s statewide gains. An F&M poll released in August showed Trump at just 7 percent support in Philadelphia.
Overall, the poll — which was conducted last week — showed Clinton making gains in Pennsylvania following a week of what can best be described as bad news for Trump. The poll showed Clinton leading by nine points in Pennsylvania, a state that pundits have described as one of the battleground states critical to either candidate’s path to the White House. Her lead among likely voters is 47 percent to Trump’s 38 percent.
The results out of Philadelphia are especially of note. Here in the city, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by a nearly 8-to-1 margin. The last time a Republican presidential candidate garnered more than 20 percent of the vote in the city was 24 years ago in 1992, when George H.W. Bush took 21 percent of the vote in the general election. Here’s how Republican presidential candidates fared in Philadelphia in the general election since then:
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A second poll out of Monmouth University released Tuesday showed Clinton with a 10-point lead in Pennsylvania and showed she leads the GOP nominee in the “seven congressional districts that encompass the city of Philadelphia” 62 percent to 30 percent. That poll reported Clinton’s favorability rating has increased since August while Trump’s has declined.
The F&M poll also showed Democratic candidate for Senate Katie McGinty leads incumbent Republican Pat Toomey by six points among likely voters. In Philadelphia, 56 percent of voters said they’d vote for McGinty, 13 percent said they’d vote for Toomey and a whopping 32 percent were still undecided.
Meanwhile, the Monmouth poll showed McGinty and Toomey in a tie at 46 percent each. The last time Monmouth polled likely voters in August, McGinty led 45 percent to 41 percent.
Oct. 11 is the voter registration deadline. You can register to vote here.
