Presidential polls Thursday, Oct. 27: Hillary Clinton maintains lead over Donald Trump

Impact

It's still Hillary Clinton's election to lose. Her lead over Donald Trump has grown to nearly 6 percentage points. She has maintained a lead over Trump of at least 5 points in the national four-way presidential race for two weeks. 

In her story on Donald Trump's poll numbers, Mic's Stephanie Gaskell noted that despite the wide gap between Trump and Clinton, the Republican is still aggressively campaigning. 

Trump's campaign schedule is a reflection of his concern over the battleground states that will likely define the results of this election. On Thursday, he will make three campaign stops in Ohio before heading to New Hampshire, Maine and Iowa on Friday.

And in Texas, Trump holds a narrow lead: 3 points in one poll and 7 in another. A lead of that size in a battleground like Florida or North Carolina would be good news for the Republican. But Texas is a cornerstone of any GOP electoral strategy — Mitt Romney won there by nearly 16 points in 2012. 

In other words, it's unlikely that Clinton will win Texas and its 38 electoral college votes.  But Trump could win the state by the lowest margin in recent history.

Thursday did bring Trump some positive poll numbers. But it also brought negative survey results. As Mic's Emily Cahn wrote, that led to supporters of Clinton and Trump cherry-picking polls they found favorable to their candidate.

But as supporters of either candidate cherry pick the polls that give them comfort in the final 12 days of the race, one thing remains constant: Clinton holds a substantial lead and remains the heavy favorite after Wednesday's polling dump.

Trump continues to face deep unpopularity with voters. And while his negative ratings are improving, they are still far worse than Clinton. The Democrat is within striking distance of a net positive favorability rating among voters.

The takeaway: Trump continues to face major challenges, as borne out by state and national level polls for weeks. His route to victory through the electoral college remains elusive. And less than two weeks is a narrow window to swing the shrinking number of undecided voters to his side.