Americans fear their presidential choices: Poll

The vast majority of Americans say they feel afraid if one of the presumptive US presidential nominees — Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton — is elected to the White House, a new poll shows.

The Associated Press-GfK poll released Thursday found that 81 percent of US voters were worried by the idea of a Clinton or Trump presidency.

The poll also shows that 75 percent of the participants said their only motivation to vote in the November presidential election was to prevent Clinton or Trump from entering the White House.

Additionally, 56 percent of the voters said they would feel afraid of Trump’s possible victory while 48 percent say they would regret it.

Things were not much better for Clinton, as 48 percent said they were terrified by the former secretary of state’s presidency, and 46 percent said they would feel regretful about it.

Trump’s lead expanding

Despite the general unpopularity, hypothetical head to head match-ups between the two candidates have recently seen Trump expanding his lead over Clinton.

The New York businessman topped Clinton 44 percent to 37 percent in a Rasmussen Reports poll that was released Thursday.

This is the third week in a row that Trump comes out on top in the weekly poll. This is also Trump’s highest level of national support in the survey since October.

Most polls conducted over the past week point to declining support for Clinton, who led Trump by double-digits in April.

However, Trump has been eating away at Clinton’s margin for quite some time now. According to a RealClearPolitics average of polls, he now stands only 3.1-points behind her: 44 to 40.9 percent.

This was reflected in a CBS News/New York Times poll that was also released on Thursday and showed the candidates locked in a dead heat at 40 percent.

On Wednesday, a poll by the Quinnipiac University showed that Trump has also overtaken Clinton in three swing states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

The result prompted panic among Clinton’s campaign staff, with her spokesman Brian Fallon calling Trump a “serious danger.”