September 6, 2015 8:05am by David Farrar

Trump leads Clinton for the first time

Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump leads Democrat Hillary Clinton head-to-head, according to a new poll released Friday.

The poll by SurveyUSA finds that matched up directly, Trump garners 45 percent to Clinton’s 40 percent.

In other head-to-head matchups, Trump beats out Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) by 44 percent to 40 percent; Vice President Joe Biden by 44 percent to 42 percent; and former Vice President Al Gore by 44 percent to 41 percent.

Trump’s surge past Clinton marks a dramatic turnaround in the polls.

A CNN/ORC sampling of national voters in late June — just days after Trump entered the race — found that 59 percent supported Clinton to 34 percent picking Trump in a head-to-head race.

So Trump is up 11% and Clinton down 15%. A huge swing.

Polls at this early stage aren’t generally that important. It is still highly likely Clinton will be the Democartic nominee and highly unlikely Trump will be the Republican nominee.

However momentum is important, and this Shows Trump has it and Clinton going backwards. A major argument against Trump is he could not win the general election. A few more polls like this, and that conventional wisdom will go the same way as all the other conventional wisdom Trump has smashed.

The demographic breakdowns are interesting: