Trump 'p****' tape sends him plunging to double-digit deficit against Clinton in poll taken before the debate 

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Donald Trump's 'p***y' tape blasted a hole in his ratings among voters and allowed Hillary Clinton to open up a double-digit lead, the first full poll since the leaked tape revealed - but before Sunday's debate.

Likely voters handed Clinton a 46 per cent share to the Republican's 35 per cent, a NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed Monday.

The 11-point lead was polled over the weekend, but before the candidates went up against one another at a combative debate on Sunday evening. 

On Friday the Washington Post published a 2005 tape recording Trump telling TV host Billy Bush that his fame allowed him to grope women.

Trump and Clinton faced off in a brutal debate on Sunday evening. In a poll conducted before the debate, but after the Trump tape leaked, Clinton has an 11-point lead over her rival 

The 2005 tape has blasted a hole in Trump's polling figures. In a prior poll completed September 19 Clinton had 43 per cent to Trump's 37

'Grab them by the p***y,' he told Bush on the set of Days Of Our Lives. 'You can do anything.' 

Trump remained defiant on Monday, after telling debate viewers that the comments were 'locker room talk'. 

He tweeted a long list of unofficial polls showing him coming out top from Sunday's battle. 

'Debate polls look great - thank you! #MAGA #AmericaFirst,' he wrote. 

Among the reaction polls listed was one from the conservative Drudge Report, giving the Republican 70 per cent and Clinton 30. Right-wing news site Breitbart gave him 93 per cent to Clinton's 7. 

Those polls relied on website visitors clicking their candidate pick, rather than getting responses from a selected cross-section of voters. They therefore can be more representative of a website's readers than the population as a whole.

Trump tweeted eight separate polls showing him outperforming Clinton in the debate

Meanwhile a CNN/ORC snap poll of debate watchers found that 57 per cent of voters thought Clinton won, compared to 34 for Trump. A YouGov poll had the Democrat ahead by a smaller margin, at 47 per cent to his 42.

The footage - which Trump put down to 'locker room talk' in the debate - has caused a furor with top Republicans including John McCain dropping their endorsement for their candidate.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, the party's most powerful elected representative, is reported to have told lawmakers on a Monday phone call that he would not 'defend' Trump over the matter. 

The scandal boosted Clinton's numbers in the poll. Her lead was even bigger among registered voters, at 13 points - her largest since the survey began testing the duo last September.

While 52 per cent of respondents said the Trump tape should be an issue in the campaign, 42 per cent said it should not be an issue. 

Still, 41 per cent of voters agreed that the remarks were 'completely unacceptable' versus 31 per cent who labeled them as 'inappropriate, but typical of how some men talk in private with other men'.

Just 23 per cent of Republicans said the tape should lead to Republican representatives dropping their endorsement of Trump, or calling for the billionaire to remove himself from the presidential race.   

The 2005 footage from the set of Days Of Our Lives, pictured, put a bombshell under Trump's campaign. Trump is shown with  actress Arianne Zucker and Billy Bush

Speaker Paul Ryan is reported to have told lawmakers on a Monday phone call that he would not 'defend' Trump over the footage, although he did not remove his endorsal of the candidate

Trump's troubles apparently had effects beyond the presidential race: in the question of which party voters wanted to see in charge of Congress, Democrats commanded 49 per cent, against the Republicans' 42 per cent, the poll showed.

That was the Democrats' biggest slice of the vote since the government shutdown in October 2009.

And a Rasmussen tracking poll partially conducted after the tape leaked showed Clinton with a seven-point advantage, at 45 to Trump's 38 - her biggest since August last year. 

Before the Washington Post published the footage of Trump's 'locker room' conversation with Billy Bush, the two were virtually even in the Rasmussen survey, at 43 for the Democrat and 42 for the real estate mogul. The latest results were collected from likely voters on October 5, 6 and 9.