Over the past couple of weeks, Donald Trump has become the presumptive Republican nominee and Hillary Clinton has continued to inch closer to the magic number of delegates she needs to lock up the Democratic contest. Clinton continues to lead Bernie Sanders in our national tracking poll (she is up by 14 points in this week's results).
Attention is now rapidly moving to the hypothetical match-up between the leading candidates with an emphasis on a Clinton and Trump contest. In this week's poll, Americans are nearly split between their choice of Trump or Clinton; her margin over Trump narrows from 5 points last week to 3 points this week to 48 percent to 45 percent.
This early data indicates a very close race right now — though that may change considerably before November. Understanding, why the race is close requires a deeper look into how various demographic groups break for either candidate.
The demographic-based analyses below are from the latest data from the NBC News|SurveyMonkey Weekly Election Tracking Poll conducted online from May 9 through May 15 among 14,100 adults, including 12,507 who say they are registered to vote.
Donald Trump reveals attack strategy as race with Hillary Clinton tightens 3:08
Clinton, who was able to maintain her front-runner status throughout the Democratic primary by winning over black and Hispanic voters, continues to do extremely well among these voters over Trump. She wins black voters 84 percent to 9 percent — a 75 point gap — and wins Hispanics 65 percent to 28 percent.
Trump is the preferred candidate among white voters by 14 points over Clinton — 53 percent to 39 percent. This is up slightly from last week's 11-point margin among white voters.
There is also a significant gender gap with Clinton beating Trump by 15 points among women, while Trump carries men by a similar 11-percent margin. Gender appears to be critical to this race already with Trump's controversial comments about Clinton playing the "woman's card" in order to explain her success over Sanders.
