Trump now leads Hillary by 5 points nationally, 42-37, May 17-18, 2016 Rasmussen Poll, 1000 Likely voters. Trump has 22 point lead in men, Hillary only 11 point lead in women. Trump leads among unaffiliated voters 41-28-Rasmussen

May 17-18, 2016 national poll, 1000 Likely voters, telephone interviews. 3% error margin. "Trump leads by 22 points among men, compared to Clinton’s 11-point advantage among women." Trump leads among unaffiliated voters 41-28. There are 15% more unaffiliated voters than Republican voters nationally (40-25), per Gallup. Independent and unaffiliated voters are at highest level in more than 75 years of polling."...Gallup reported in January,  29%D, 25%R, 40%I. 1/28/2016, "At start of campaign, the last gasp of political parties?" McClatchy, David Lightman)

May 19, 2016, "White House Watch: Trump 42% Clinton 37%," Rasmussen Research

"Donald Trump has now grown his lead over Hillary Clinton in Rasmussen Reports’ first weekly White House Watch survey. 
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Trump earns 42% support to Clinton’s 37% when Likely U.S. Voters are asked whom they would vote for if the presidential election were held today. But Rasmussen Reports’ latest national telephone survey finds that 13% prefer some other candidate, while seven percent (7%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.) 

At the beginning of this month, Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, posted a statistically insignificant 41% to 39% lead over Clinton who is still expected to win the Democratic presidential nomination. Fifteen percent (15%) favored someone else, and five percent (5%) were undecided. 

Rasmussen Reports will update the Clinton-Trump White House Watch matchup numbers every Thursday morning from now until Election Day in November. 

The latest findings were gathered the night before and the night after Trump’s announcement yesterday of 11 conservative judges he would consider for the current vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, furthering his efforts to unify the party and end the #NeverTrump movement among some Republicans. Clinton on Tuesday eked out a primary win in Kentucky but lost the Oregon primary to Bernie Sanders as the race for the Democratic presidential nomination took a more chaotic turn. 

Trump now gets 76% of the Republican vote, while Clinton has 72% Democratic support. Thirteen percent (13%) of Democrats prefer Trump, while nine percent (9%) of GOP voters favor Clinton. Among voters not affiliated with either major party, Trump leads 41% to 28%, but 31% of these voters either like another candidate or are undecided.

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on May 17-18, 2016 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology. 

Rasmussen Reports has been running hypothetical matchup surveys between Clinton and Trump for several months. Here’s what we’ve found so far. 

While there is much talk of a gender gap in this race, Clinton appears to have a bigger problem with men than Trump does with women.  

Trump leads by 22 points among men, compared to Clinton’s 11-point advantage among women. 

Those under 40 favor Clinton, while older voters prefer Trump by double-digit margins. 

Younger voters traditionally have been a key part of the Democratic base, but right now one-third of those voters like some other candidate or are undecided. Many of these voters are likely to be Sanders supporters which highlights how important it will be for Clinton to quickly heal her party after she wins the nomination. 

Clinton is well ahead of Trump among black voters but loses the white vote to her GOP opponent. Other minority voters are closely divided [subscription]. 

Seventy-seven percent (77%) of voters who Strongly Approve of the job President Obama is doing favor Clinton. Eighty-six percent (86%) of those who Strongly Disapprove of the president’s job performance prefer Trump....

Voters remain lukewarm about Obama's national security policies and expect more of the same if Clinton moves back into the White House next January. Trump, if elected, will definitely change things, voters say, but not necessarily for the best.
Trump met last week with House Speaker Paul Ryan, the highest-ranking Republican member of Congress. Ryan has expressed reservations about endorsing Trump, but GOP voters now think their party should be more like Trump than Ryan anyway (May 9-10 Rasmussen poll). 

Sanders’ unexpected success in the 2016 presidential campaign has exposed the growing rift between the Democratic party establishment and the party’s more progressive wing. Still, Democratic voters are more likely than voters in general to think their party should identify with Clinton rather than Sanders."

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More on unaffiliated voters in 2016. (Please excuse tiny text in places below. This is done by google when they don't want you to read something. It can't be repaired by me.)

With rise of independent and unaffiliated voters to highest level in 75+ years, Republican and Democrat parties are anachronisms, 1/28/2016, McClatchy: 

1/28/16, "At start of campaign, the last gasp of political parties?" McClatchy, David Lightman

"The largest party in America now is no party — with the ranks of people calling themselves independents at the highest level in more than 75 years of polling. The parties do not control the message. People learn about politics from social media instead of traditional means such as mailings or campaign rallies. And the parties are no longer the sole banker of politics. Big-money interests now effectively create shadow parties with extensive networks of donors of their own. 

The result: People are tuning out and turning away.

In 2012, average voter turnout for statewide primaries for president, governor and U.S. Senate plunged to its lowest level since the modern primary system became popular in 1972.

“No one likes political parties anymore,” said Jan Leighley, who studies voter behavior at American University, where she is a professor of government. “They no longer have to work through the political process,” added Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute.

It’s a historic change in voter behavior. The Democratic and Republican parties have dominated American politics since the mid-1850s. They grew and prospered as inclusive coalitions that tolerated diverse views for the sake of winning elections and then consolidating power....

“Americans’ attachment to the two major political parties in recent years is arguably the weakest Gallup has recorded since the advent of its polls,” Gallup reported in January.

Just 29 percent called themselves Democrats last year.... Republican loyalty was only 1 percentage point above its recent low of 25 percent three years ago. The bloc of independents reached 40 percent in 2011, and it has stayed at or above that level ever since. [29D, 25R, 40I]

The parties’ challenge is clear in states of all sizes. In New Hampshire, site of the first primary election, at least 40 percent register as “undeclared,” meaning they have no formal affiliation with a political party. 

In 2014, California had twice as many voters without a party affiliation as it did 20 years earlier. The same year, Florida had 47 percent more independent voters than a decade earlier.

Most indifferent to parties: young Americans. Nearly half the millennials identified as independents in 2014, Pew found, more than the combined total of those willing to be called either Democrats or Republicans.

“I never want to write down that I’m a Republican,” said Rebecca Sorensen, a sophomore at Penn State. She leans Republican but is reluctant to openly identify with the party because she supports abortion rights. 

Historically, children adopted their parents’ political views, including identification with the two major parties. Not anymore.

Millennials get information from sources other than from family dinners, neighbors or campaign brochures. If something piques their interest, they turn to Twitter, text messaging, The Skimm and other modern forms of instant communication.

“If I want to know more, I Google it,” said Jayla Akers, a sophomore at Penn State University.

Political parties are seen as too narrowly focused, too interested in keeping incumbents in office.

They gerrymander congressional districts to maximize their chances so that election after election only a handful of House of Representatives races are true contests. Of the House’s 435 seats, 402 incumbents are considered safe bets for re-election this year, said the nonpartisan Rothenberg and Gonzales Political Report....

“This two-party system quashes independent thought and the courage to take a stance on positions and kills the free market of ideas our country was supposed to be founded on,” said Ellen Read, a political activist in New Hampshire. 

Parties for generations did welcome differing views and broader membership....

Republicans once had a strong bloc of abortion rights supporters, for example, but in 1976 the party formally included in its platform support for a constitutional amendment “to restore protection of the right to life for unborn children.” It’s now unmistakably the anti-abortion party....

Democrats also were critical of their own tactics....“It’s true that today’s multifaceted political landscape changes the footprint of national parties,” said Democratic Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

But she noted that “in the primaries, we set the rules for the nomination and nothing can replace the unique ability of the national parties to effectively organize and mobilize voters,” and their role in the general election is so detailed it “cannot be replicated externally.”

While independents are gaining clout, so are the big-money groups that now operate as virtual political parties....

The Koch network does more than just spend money. Twice each year it hosts about 400 executives, who pay dues of $100,000 each, for meetings on politics and policies....

Other alternatives to the parties also are gearing up. In that world, everyday voters ask, how can they ever be heard? Not through the Republican or Democrats parties, say increasing numbers of voters.

As Peter White, a cabin manager in Nottingham, New Hampshire, put it, “You feel the two parties both work for Wall Street and don’t care who wins.”"　

"This version changes the reference to the rise in independents in California to say voters without a party affiliation."

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Among comments to McClatchy article: There's only one party:

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"Feigning they are two different parties, in reality they are one in the same:"
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"Rip Torn" Parties, seriously I don't see any parties. I just see the Democrats and the Republicans feigning they are two different parties but in reality they are one in the same. The media keeps up the lie as they dupe the electorate."

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"Good riddance to both."

"Walter Ziobro It's about time. The Democratic and Republican Parties have essentially been philosophically irrelevant since WW2. Prior to that, the Dems were the party of states rights, free trade, and Southern agrarian interests. The Reps were the party of federalism, protectionism, and Northern industrial interests. Since then, both have morphed so much that each has basically been turned inside out, and upside down. Good riddance to both."