<p><a href="https://punchingbagpost.com/donald-trump-softens-his-stance-on-illegal-immigration/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>As I wrote in a previous article,</strong></a> Donald Trump&rsquo;s campaign is evolving. The brash billionaire is sticking to the teleprompter and softening some of his harsh viewpoints (immigration, for example) to appeal to a wider audience. ;</p>
<p>The latest polls reflect these positive changes, ;with Trump making significant gains against Hillary during the past three weeks.</p>
<p>Much of this success is credited to Kellyanne Conway, a political strategist who was hired on as Trump&#8217;s campaign manager earlier this month. ;</p>
<p>While polls typically are not accurate within more than 3-5 points, each poll does tend to be accurate relative to itself, and many August ;polls show that Trump is indeed closing the gap. ;We selected only the major polls that had polling data from this week and the first week of August. ;</p>
<p>When you add Johnson and Stein to the contest, polling data from Economist/YouGov, Gravis, Monmouth, and Reuters/Ipsos each showed a substantial loss. Clinton&rsquo;s lead has dwindled by an average of 3.5 points since the first week of August. ;</p>
<p>In a one-on-one contest, ;data from Economist/YouGov shows Clinton&rsquo;s lead has decreased from +7 (Aug. 6-9) to just +3 (Aug. 19-23). ;The latest LA Times/USC poll shows Trump and Clinton in a dead tie with 44 points each, compared to Clinton&rsquo;s +4 lead just two weeks ago. ;</p>
<p>Polling is a very scientific practice in theory, but it is very difficult in practice to choose samples that reflect evenly across the population in the dozens, perhaps hundreds of relevant demographics. A polling agency must actually recruit the right people and keep track of a thousand or more potential respondents is a difficult process. This is why polls vary so widely.</p>
<p>The result is polling agencies tend to use largely the same respondents with each poll. While the samples maybe skewed enough to have a margin of error of 4-5%, changes in the opnions in the same polling sample are substantially more important.</p>
<p>In short, the math is real, Trump is gaining.</p>
<p> ;</p>