Trump, Clinton tied on debate day in latest voter survey

Hempstead (New York) Sep 27 

US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has pulled even with his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, in the latest voter survey and the pair are tied on the day of the first presidential debate, which could pull in a record television audience for an event of its kind.

Hofstra University on Long Island is preparing to host the first presidential debate matching Clinton and Trump, a contest that could draw 100 million TV and streaming online viewers, EFE news reported.

On the day of the debate, Bloomberg published the results of the latest poll in which Trump garnered 43 per cent of the likely voters surveyed and Clinton 41 per cent, providing that the minority party candidates -- the Libertarian Party's Gary Johnson and the Green Party's Jill Stein, who obtained 8 per cent and 4 per cent, respectively -- are figured into the mix.

If the minor parties are not included, Trump and Clinton are tied at 46 per cent each in the poll, which shows that the Democrat has progressively lost the wide advantage she had enjoyed after the party conventions in late July.

Averaging the main surveys, a technique used by the specialised Web site RealClearPolitics, confirms that Clinton has lost her comfortable advantage and now finds herself within the error margin, and thus in a technical tie, at 46 per cent to Trump's 44 per cent, EFE news added.

Monday night's debate, which will be broadcast starting at 9 p.m. and will last 90 minutes, will be the first of three such opportunities for Americans to compare the two candidates side by side and to become more familiar with their proposed policies.

Despite being the premiere event of the campaign so far for both Clinton and Trump, it is the real estate mogul who has been attracting virtually all the attention in the run-up to the contest, which has been the case over the past year of the campaign as he has redefined and pushed the limits of US political tradition with his overtly populist and controversial style.

It is expected that the debate, which will be moderated by NBC journalist Lester Holt, will exceed the 80 million viewers who watched the 1980 election debate between then-President Jimmy Carter and his Republican challenger, Ronald Reagan, EFE news added.

Viewership of that magnitude will put this political event at the level of the country's biggest sports event -- the Super Bowl -- which regularly attracts more than 100 million viewers.

The debate will be broadcast by the main public television networks -- ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC -- along with the cable news channels, and it may also be followed online and via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Yahoo and Hulu.