US Opinion Polls As Puzzling As Candidates Themselves: One Has Hillary Leading, Another Race Tied

Hillary Clinton is maintaining her lead over Donald Trump in a Monmouth University poll – though her edge has narrowed since the political conventions and another poll out Monday showed the race as tied.

Clinton's lead over Trump stands at 7 percentage points, 49 to 42, in the new Monmouth survey.

Her lead stood at 50 to 37 per cent immediately after her Democratic convention 'bounce.'

Her current lead is roughly in keeping with the RealClearPolitics average.

But another poll out Monday, the LA Times daily tracking poll, now has Clinton and Trump tied at 44 per cent.

The race isn't much different when Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein are listed.

Clinton keeps her 7 point edge, leading 46 per cent to 39 per cent, with 7 per cent backing Johnson and 2 per cent backing Stein.

Clinton's shrinking lead has coincided with still more reports of revelations from her emails.

A 54 per cent majority believe Clinton Foundation donors got special treatment from the State Department during Clinton's tenure. Just 26 per cent believe Clinton did nothing out of the ordinary.

There is some reason for Trump not to move off his position of holding back his tax returns, pending an audit. Six per cent of those polled believe he already has released his tax returns, even though he hasn't. Fifteen per cent aren't aware that Clinton has released her tax returns.

More voters, 36 per cent, say the issue isn't important than the 31 per cent who say it is important.

Muddying the state of the race is the LA Times poll, which has things tied at 44 per cent. The poll has had the race tighter than other surveys for days. Last Wednesday, Clinton's lead was at two percentage points in the poll, which provides data from multiple days' surveys.

Clinton's lead stood at 6.1 per cent in the RealClearPolitics polling average Monday.

Trump's improvement has come at a time when he made changes to his campaign staff and has begun to rely more on prepared statements and modified some of his rhetoric.

The Trump camp is planning to spend $10 million in nine battleground states, it's biggest ad buy to date, the campaign revealed Monday.