This is what's fueling Donald Trump's recent surge in the polls

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Donald Trump

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Donald Trump.

A combination of factors appears to be behind Donald Trump's surge in recent national polls, pulling the real-estate mogul into a dead heat with Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.

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The Manhattan billionaire on Monday overtook Clinton in the RealClearPolitics polling average for the first time. Trump holds a 0.2% lead over Clinton in what is the gold-standard of polling averages.

According to the surveys that have shown him narrowing the gap, here's why: Trump is quickly consolidating the support of his party, while Clinton's still locked in a grueling primary battle.

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday had Clinton holding a 3-point lead, an 8-point swing from the month before.

The survey showed Trump's support among Republican voters shooting up from 72% in April to 86% in May. Now, just 6% of Republicans say they won't support the presumptive Republican nominee in the fall, compared to 13% in April.

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Meanwhile, Clinton's support among Democrats was slightly below Trump's number with his party. The former secretary of state had the support of 83% of Democrats polled as part of the survey, while 9% said they are not backing her.

More potentially concerning for Clinton: The NBC/WSJ poll found that just 66% of Democratic primary voters supporting Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator challenging her for the nomination, said they would support Clinton against Trump.

Those numbers jibe with a poll released earlier this month conducted by Mark Penn, Clinton's chief strategist during the 2008 campaign. The poll, conducted in late March, found that just 64% of Sanders supporters would vote for Clinton in the general election.

Another Sunday poll - from ABC News and The Washington Post - found almost identical splits to the NBC/WSJ poll in terms of Republican and Democratic support for Trump and Clinton.

Trump held a 2-point lead in the ABC/Post poll.

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And that survey also broke down support by ideological bend as well as partisanship. The numbers didn't look especially great for Clinton.

Clinton's lead over Trump among self-identified liberal voters dropped from a 77% to 16% lead in March to a 69% to 24% lead in May.

The Democratic frontrunner also saw a dropoff in support among self-identified conservative voters, going from being the preference of 23% of respondents in March to 18% in May. Trump went from 69% to 74% in that same timeframe.

Clinton led the Manhattan billionaire by a 49% to 39% margin among voters who view themselves as moderates - but that also represented a 12-point drop from her March lead. On the partisan side, independent voters favored Trump by a 48% to 35% margin, a massive swing from the 48% to 39% edge Clinton held in March.

Together, the polls displayed is both a growing subset of self-identified liberal and independent voters who are straying from Clinton in a matchup against the presumptive Republican nominee, while Trump is consolidating support among the GOP establishment.

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They suggest that perhaps Clinton's biggest challenge over the next few months could be rallying the same kind of consolidation from Sanders supporters and other traditionally Democratic voters.

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