Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will meet Monday night for their first debate in a virtual dead heat in the race for the White House, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, with the Democratic nominee's August advantage erased after recent difficulties and the GOP nominee still facing doubts about his qualifications and temperament.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-poll-virtual-tie-clin...Likely voters split 46 percent for Clinton vs. 44 percent for Trump, with Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson at 5 percent and Green Party nominee Jill Stein at 1 percent. Among registered voters, Clinton and Trump are tied at 41 percent, with Johnson at 7 percent and Stein at 2 percent.
In a two-way matchup between the major-party nominees, Clinton tops Trump by 49 percent to 47 percent among likely voters, and the two are tied at 46 percent among all registered voters. Clinton's two-point edge among likely voters, in both the four-way and two-way ballot tests, is within the survey's 4.5 percentage-point margin of sampling error.
The findings underscore how much the presidential contest has tightened in recent weeks, after Clinton emerged from the two national conventions with a clear lead and with Trump on the defensive. In early September, Clinton led Trump by five points among likely voters. In early August, she led by eight points.