Donald Trump Within 3 Points of Hillary Clinton in Michigan: New Poll

A new poll conducted Tuesday night, a day after he made back-to-back appearances in Grand Rapids and Warren, Michigan, shows Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has pulled to within 3 percentage points of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, putting him in a position to win the state’s 16 electoral votes in the historic Nov. 8 presidential election.

In both rallies, Trump hit Clinton hard on a fresh email controversy — a result of FBI Director James Comey’s bombshell letter to Congress that emails discovered on electronic devices belonging to former New York congressman Anthony Weiner and his wife, top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, may be “pertinent” to an earlier probe of the former secretary of state’s private email server.

The emails under review were discovered during an FBI investigation of allegations that Weiner sent illicit text messages to a 15-year-old North Carolina girl.

“This is the biggest scandal since Watergate,” Trump said in Grand Rapids. “We can be sure that what is in those emails is absolutely devastating.”

But it is the combination of factors from WikiLeaks email dumps to questions surrounding the Clinton Foundation, not specifically “the Comey effect,” that likely voters surveyed in a Fox 2 Detroit/Mitchell poll cited as the reason they’re moving away from Clinton toward Trump.

Michigan Key in Trump Path to Victory

In a four-way race in Michigan, Clinton narrowly leads Trump, 47 percent to 44 percent, in the poll of 887 likely voters released Wednesday. A direct question related to Comey’s disclosure of the email review showed that alone wasn’t a factor in Clinton’s eroding support, said Steve Mitchell, CEO of Mitchell Research & Communications, which conducted the poll for the television station.

“However, the combined pressure on Clinton over the WikiLeaks, the Clinton Foundation and other problems are clearly now impacting her candidacy,” Mitchell told the television station. “She dropped 3 percent from last night, erasing the same gains she had made the night before, and Trump gained 1 percent. Clearly Clinton’s problems are now taking a toll on her candidacy in Michigan and the state is now in play.”

Clinton’s biggest losses in the Michigan poll are among men and women 65 and older who are now supporting Trump, according to the poll.

A Real Clear Politics polling average, which includes the Fox/Mitchell Poll, gives Clinton slightly better chances in Michigan, with a 5.7 percentage point lead over Trump. The average covers polls conducted from Oct. 22-Nov. 1.

To get to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency, Trump has to “break the big blue wall” and win either Michigan, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, NBC political director Chuck Todd said Wednesday.

Michigan looked like safe territory for Clinton about a month ago, when she surged to an 11-point advantage in a Detroit Free Press/WXYZ-TV poll. The same poll about three weeks prior showed Trump had pulled within 3 points.

As the race tightens, Michigan has seen a steady stream of candidates and their surrogates in the days leading up to the election.

Historic Moment for Women

The former secretary of state’s running mate, Tim Kaine, was in Metro Detroit Sunday, where he focused on Clinton’s chances of becoming the first woman to be elected president of the United States.

“I’ve always been the one with my name on bumper stickers, yard sign and ballots. But I’ve always been able to do well because of strong women,” Kaine told a crowd of several hundred people at a rally in Taylor on Sunday. “The next president will commemorate the centennial of women getting the right to vote. Is it unreasonable to have that president be a woman, rather than a man who offends women every time he opens his mouth?”

A day later, singer and Oscar-winning actress Cher campaigned for Clinton in Bloomfield Hills, Flint and Michigan State University and Western Michigan University campuses. Like Kaine, she focused on Clinton’s historic status as the first woman to win a major party’s nomination for president.

“As women we have gone through so much, so the idea of having a woman president … it's long in coming and it’s a great thing,” Cher said at a rally at Michigan State Monday. “It’s not just a great idea because of Hillary, it’s a great idea because of our daughters being able to realize that there is a ceiling that’s been broken through and any one of them could be president.”

‘We Love You, Ivanka’

Two of Trump’s children, Donald Jr. and Ivanka Trump, campaigned for their father in Detroit, East Lansing, Grand Valley State University and Troy Wednesday.

Ivanka Trump, speaking to several hundred businesswomen in Troy, said that as a political neophyte, she has been fascinated by “the excitement from all over the country about the potential that could be unleashed if my father is elected president.”

Donald Trump Jr., speaking on the Michigan State University campus, said his father will “drain the swamp,” a reference to the candidate’s pledge to clean up perceived corruption in Washington, D.C.

Trump’s eldest son said his father is “someone outside the system with the guts to take it on.”

“He’ll take on (politicians) on both sides who’ve failed us,” Donald Trump Jr. said.

Trump’s children were trying to increase his support in two key demographics — young voters and college-educated women. The strategy yielded mixed results, the Detroit Free Press reported. The women at the Troy rally frequently interrupted Ivanka Trump with shouts of “We love you, Ivanka.” In East Lansing on the MSU campus, Donald Trump Jr. was met by about 50 protesters with signs reading “Dump Trump” and “Immigrants make America great.”

Sanders: Issues Must Survive Election Day

In Kalamazoo, Clinton’s rival for the Democratic nomination, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, stumped for her at a get-out-the-vote rally at Western Michigan University. He told students, many of whom supported him in the primaries, the survival of issues important to them past Election Day hinges on a Clinton win.

“On the day after the election, we’ve got to continue our efforts to make sure that every American has health care, that we lower the cost of prescription drugs and that we make colleges tuition free,” he said.

Also Wednesday, former President Bill Clinton made a surprise stop in Detroit. He had been scheduled to visit Des Moines, Iowa, Wednesday, but the rally was canceled after two Des Moines metro police officers were gunned down in ambush attacks. Clinton joined civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and Detroit NAACP President the Rev. Wendell Anthony in a private event to discuss Election Day strategy, WXYZ-TV reports.

Michiganders Abandoning Party Loyalty?

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, a Detroit native and Trump’s rival in the primary, tailgated in East Lansing at the state football rivalry game between host Michigan State University and Michigan, where he said he expects more voters than ever before to abandon party loyalty.

“I think a lot of people are starting to recognize that this election is not about Democrats and Republicans. This is about the political ruling class and their minions in the media and the people,” Carson said. “And as more people realize that, I think you're going to see them abandoning the party loyalty and start thinking about their children in America.”

The last Republican nominee to win Michigan was George H.W. Bush in 1988. President Obama won the state by a more than 54 percent margin in 2012, when he was opposed by Michigan native Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts.

Photos by Gage Skidmore via Flickr Commons