Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton in a hypothetical general election matchup by 3 percent in the latest Fox News poll released on May 18.
The poll showed Trump edging out Clinton 45 percent to 42 percent, within the 3 percent margin of error. The previous Fox News poll, released in April, had Clinton up by 7 percent—48 percent to 41 percent.
A recent NBC/Survey Monkey poll released May 17th showed that Donald Trump was closing the gap with Clinton—with the Democratic nominee holding a 3 point margin, 48 percent to 45 percent.
However, this is one of the first national polls by a major news outlet showing the presumptive Republican nominee leading against the Democratic frontrunner.
Neither Trump nor Clinton however, scored high numbers when it came to questions about morality, trustworthiness, or favorability.
Asked whether Trump is honest and trustworthy, 40 percent of registered voters surveyed said he is, while 57 percent said he is not. Asked the same of Clinton, 31 percent said she is and 66 percent said she is not.
When asked whether the candidate “will say anything to get elected,” 71 percent said that the phrase describes Clinton, while 65 percent say it describes Trump.
The poll shows that the race is split down gender and racial lines.
Clinton is ahead by 14 percent among women (50-36 percent) but Trump leads by 22 percent among men (55-33 percent). Trump also leads with white women by 9 percent (47-38 percent).
Overall, Trump is preferred by 24 percent among whites (55-31 percent) while Clinton holds a substantial 83 percent lead with black voters (90-7 percent) and a 39 percent lead among Hispanic voters(62-23 percent).
In 2012, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney won by 20 points among whites, while President Barack Obama won blacks by 87 points and Hispanics by 44, according to the Fox News exit poll.
These gender and racial lines fit into a general makeup of each party: 83 percent of Democrats back Clinton and 82 percent of Republicans support Trump.
Independents favor Trump, 46-30 percent, although one in five would vote for someone else or stay home (20 percent).
The poll shows Bernie Sanders has a 46-42 percent advantage over Trump in a hypothetical matchup, which is down from April where Sanders was up 53-39 percent in April.
While Sanders does better against Trump in a general election, he’s also behind Clinton 272 delegates in the ongoing Democratic Primary.
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cellphone interviews with 1,021 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from May 14-17, 2016. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for all registered voters.
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