Another Poll Brings More Bad News For Trump
The first round of post-convention polls is now complete, and it's not looking good for The Donald.
Seemingly confirming what we’ve seen from other polls, the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll shows Hillary Clinton with an eight point lead over Donald Trump:
Hillary Clinton has emerged from the two major party conventions and their aftermath with an eight-point lead over Donald Trump, aided by a consolidation of support among Democrats and a failure so far by Republicans to rally equally behind their nominee, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Clinton and her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.), now lead Trump and his running mate, Gov. Mike Pence (Ind.), by 50 percent to 42 percent among registered voters, double the four-point advantage the Democrats held on the eve of the Republican convention in mid-July. Among likely voters, the Democratic nominee leads by 51 percent to 44 percent.
In a four-way race that includes Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein, Clinton leads Trump by 45 percent to 37 percent, with Johnson at 8 percent and Stein at 4 percent. Before the Republican convention, she had a four-percentage-point lead in a four-way matchup.
The poll confirms that Clinton received a larger post-convention bounce than Trump did from his convention. But she appears to have been aided as well by days of controversy that Trump generated with his sharp criticism of a Muslim American family whose son, Army Capt. Humayun Khan, was killed in Iraq in 2004 and who rebuked Trump on the stage of the Democratic convention.
When asked about the criticisms Trump exchanged with Khizr and Ghazala Khan, 13 percent of registered voters said they approve of the way the business mogul handled the matter, while 74 percent said they disapprove. Overall, 56 percent said they strongly disapprove of the GOP nominee’s handling of the controversy.
The conventions did not ease public dissatisfaction with the choice in this election. Almost 6 in 10 registered voters say they are dissatisfied with the choice between Clinton and Trump as the major-party candidates, virtually unchanged from mid-July.
The Post-ABC survey is in line with most polls conducted in the days after the Democratic convention in Philadelphia ended. Advisers to the two major-party nominees agree that it will take several more weeks before it is clear where the race stands, as convention bounces generally dissipate over time. After that, the next big opportunity for a shift in the race probably will not come until late September, when the first of the three scheduled presidential debates takes place.
Clinton’s lead resembles the six-point post-convention leads for Barack Obama in 2012 and George W. Bush in 2004, both of whom won their bids for second terms. Yet Al Gore’s five-point lead after the 2000 convention shrank to a narrow popular vote lead on Election Day, with Bush garnering more electoral votes.
Beyond the upcoming debates, external events or major embarrassments or mistakes by one candidate or the other could affect the balance between Clinton and Trump. In 2008, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) caught up with Obama after his convention but fell well behind after the financial collapse weeks later.
Trump appears to have done little to improve his overall image, despite efforts primarily by his children to use their convention speeches to portray him as a loving father and a successful business executive. Almost 6 in 10 voters say he is not qualified to be president, unchanged from before his convention, and 3 in 10 say they would feel comfortable if he were to become president.
The underlying structure of the race as it now stands leaves Trump in a precarious position. His inability to command greater support among Republicans, if it continues into the fall, will give Clinton a significant advantage in the overall popular vote and probably in the key battleground states. Rather than taking steps to unify the party, Trump has done the opposite in recent days by declining to endorse House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and McCain in their primary contests. On Friday, Trump reversed course and endorsed all three.
The Post-ABC poll shows Clinton winning 92 percent support among self-identified Democrats. That compares with 86 percent support just before the Republican convention and is an indication that the Democratic convention helped consolidate supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) behind her candidacy. Those Sanders Democrats favor Clinton by 86 percent to 5 percent over Trump, larger than the 79 percent to 10 percent in July.
In contrast, Trump is winning 83 percent of self-identified Republicans, nearly identical to the 82 percent support he had among Republicans before his convention in Cleveland. Among those who favored candidates other than Trump in the Republican primaries, Trump leads Clinton by 74 percent to 17 percent — no improvement over the 76 percent to 12 percent before the convention.
As with the other polling that we’ve highlighted here at OTB since early last week, the ABC/WaPo poll showed Clinton gaining ground in demographic groups across the board, including most significantly several groups where Trump has been dominating since he started rising in polls a year ago, including white men without a college degree. Trump, meanwhile, continues to trail among women, African-Americans, and Latino voters all groups likely to play significant roles in determining the outcome in several key states going forward. Additionally, at least for now the conventions appear to have helped Clinton in erasing at least some of the favorability issues that she’s been facing ever since entering the race. Compared to polling prior to the conventions, Clinton’s favorable/unfavorable numbers have improved somewhat while Trump’s have noticeably declined, Clinton also is seen in the polls as being the person most trusted to handle a wide range of issues ranging from the economy to foreign policy while Trump’s numbers have declined in a few of these areas while he was already trailing Clinton in others. Based on an examination of the pre-convention polls and the numbers we see today then, it seems clear that whatever effort Republicans were making to reboot the race at the Republican Convention seem to have failed spectacularly, while Clinton has clearly benefited from what was, in retrospect, a relatively flawless Democratic Convention. This result was magnified by Trump’s post-convention actions, including most notably his attack on the family of a fallen soldier who spoke at the Democratic Convention. As the poll numbers above clearly demonstrate, the vast majority of Americans believe Trump handled that particular encounter quite badly.
Looking at the RealClearPolitics average, the impact of the conventions and Trump’s comments in their wake seems clear, and the question becomes whether he can turn the race around sufficiently before voters start making their final decisions in September as early and absentee voting begins in states ranging from Ohio to Florida. In the head to head match-up with Trump, RCP shows Clinton ( 47.5%) leading Trump (40.5%) in the poll average by seven points. In a three-way race that includes Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson, Clinton (43.3%) leads Trump (36.7%) by 6.6 points and Johnson averages 8.8 points, and in a four-way race that includes both Johnson and Green Party nominee Jill Stein, Clinton (43.2%) leads Trump (36.7%) by 6.5 points while Johnson averages 8.4% and Stein averages 4.0%. More so than any numbers, though, this chart of the head to head race shows the extent to which the race has changed since the conventions:
Trends can change, obviously, and it’s likely that polling will tighten as pollsters switch to their Likely Voter models in the next month or so, but the trend right now is decidedly not in Donald Trump’s favor. If that continues, then this race could be over before it really begins.
Proper headline: “Despite all evidence, study finds that more than 40% of American voters think Trump is best qualified among the candidates to be president.”
First, a small claim of Nostradamitude: My guess many weeks ago (right here at OTB) was that 1) Trump might match Hillary after his convention, that it would be 2) brief, and that 3) then Hillary would have a 7 point edge. She’s beating that by a hair.
(The only prediction I’m prouder of was my pick of three out of the three finalists in the Great British Bake-Off.)
Now, as to the campaign generally, the big problem Trump has (okay, one of his multitude of problems) is that he has no forces with which to launch a counterattack. He has zero credible surrogates, while Hillary has M. and B. Obama, Biden, Kaine, Bill, every economist, every foreign policy expert and the unintentionally damning deer-in-the-headlights expression on Paul Ryan’s face. For his part, Trump has David Duke, Newt Gingrich and a coma patient who thinks he’s Mike Pence.
No surrogates. Nothing like Hillary’s money. Nothing like Hillary’s GOTV. And if he thinks he’s going to bully Hillary in the debates he needs to run the tapes of every time the Republicans in Congress tried to take her down. Hillary is not Jeb Bush, or the emasculated man-child from Florida, what’s his name. Oh, right, Little Marco.
She’s far smarter, infinitely more knowledgeable about absolutely everything including probably how to run a casino, has a professional campaign as opposed to a gaggle of feuding nitwits and random relatives. She will dominate paid media, will target every potential vote, and unlike the Rancid Pumpkin, Hillary is actually capable of understanding basic strategy.
I’ve been trying to think of an apt military analogy. US vs. Saddam in Gulf War 1? US Navy vs. Spanish Navy in Manila? Sioux and Cheyenne at Little Bighorn? Trump has no tanks, no planes, no missiles, the terrain is against him, and his generals are morons.
Good luck climbing out of an 8 point hole. He’d better hope for another 911, and I think it may be too late for that. Maybe there’s tape of Hillary strangling a hobo. . . nah, even that wouldn’t do it.
Both parties are facing the one of the worst opposing candidate they’ve ever had to run against, but have failed to capitalize on it by choosing one of the worst candidates their party has ever run.
Ultimately it’s going to come down to which party has the organization strong enough to win despite the anchor of their candidate and, well, the Republicans have spent the last four years deliberately destroying their party’s organizational structures.
@michael reynolds:
Republicans who are pinning their hopes on the debates should reflect on the-bug-splat-formerly-known-as-Trey-Gowdy.
Trump is probably twice hosed when it comes to the debates. I have little doubt that he had been looking for a way to avoid them early on, but now he desperately needs a game changing event and the debates may be his only chance.
@Stormy Dragon:
You are simply wrong. Hillary Clinton may be a weak candidate but she would be cleaning up right now against any Republican. Why? Because the Republicans are the party for white people who believe they have it worse–because they are white–than minorities. It’s not free trade or the economy or class: it’s being white that binds them. And guess what? This isn’t real. It’s cynicism. It’s deceit. It’s one of these dopes who wants you to believe he’s not a racist and then says ten racist things. This cynicism is repulsive to everybody else. 2008 and 2012 and the empty failures in Kansas or Louisiana or the bleak stupidity that ‘questions’ climate change or thinks Obama, a centrist, is a Muslim or divisive because he makes racists angry all should have been turning points. But they weren’t, because there’s money to be made in this scam. And the point of it is to repress everything real except the political advantage and the flow of cash. The second will still remain after this election.
That’s why you have Trump, a guy who says he’s a winner while being angry about being mocked in SPY thirty years ago. He’s the baseline psyche rambling incoherently about stuff neither he nor his targets know a thing about.
As Donald Trump Incites Feuds, Other G.O.P. Candidates Flee His Shadow
When you find Democrats who are abandoning their anchor like these Republican rodents fleeing the Titanic they tried to float let us all know.
Speaking of Nostradamus.
Three years ago this week.
I realize that these things are a matter of opinion, but I just can’t take these “they’re both equally bad” arguments seriously.
Love them or hate them, Clinton and Trump have very little in common with each other. It’s tough to argue with a straight face that both of them would conduct their respective presidencies equally; at the very least, the tone that each of them would set at the bully pulpit would be markedly different.
To claim that they’re both equivalent is just intellectually lazy at best. This seems to be a cop out from libertarians and political extremists who wish to have the luxury of complaining for the sake of it and don’t care to be troubled by pesky details, i.e. facts.
@Stormy Dragon:
I know Republicans are clinging to this theory, but as @MisterBluster points out: Democrats like being seen with Hillary while Republicans are treating Trump like a leper. A leper with gonorrhea. And bad breath. And that tells you everything you need to know about the strength of Hillary.
100% of major Democratic politicians support Hillary openly and enthusiastically. While both former presidents Bush, and Mitt Romney, refuse to back Trump. Let that sink in.
We’re going to win. And we’re going to find some nice 40 year-olds to replace Scalia and RBG. And you know why we’re going to be able to do it? Because the Republican party sold its soul in little pieces, year after year, from 1968 onward. The party of Lincoln and Eisenhower and Dirksen became the party of Sean Hannity, and Limbaugh, Breitbart and Drudge and David Duke and Vladimir Putin.
The GOP blew its brains out. And now the Trump fans – the racists and the nativists and yes, the decent white folks who just don’t know why life went south for them, are going to have to rely on us to try and help them. And you know what? We will try to do just that, because we are Democrats, and we may be silly and insufferable at times, but we are not the nasty, narrow-minded bigots Republicans are.
@Modulo Myself:
She’s not even “cleaning up” against the Trump. I mean really, she’s up against the single worst major party candidate in all of US history and she’s only up by 8 points?
Even a plurality of Democrats admit they’re voting against Trump rather than for Clinton:
https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/files/2016/07/VoteFor_0_Overall_b.jpg
Clinton is not winning because she’s a good candidate. She’s winning because she’s a less terrible candidate than her opponent.
@Mister Bluster:
To extend the nautical metaphor, the fact that the Democrats aren’t jettisoning the anchor doesn’t mean the anchor isn’t an anchor, it just means the anchor is on a ship that’s not sinking.
Not only is it not sinking it is not falling off the edge of the earth.
@Stormy Dragon:
Like Nixon in ’68, baby!
@Stormy Dragon:
Instead of looking for straws to grasp, why not reflect on the fact that your party just nominated “the single worst major party candidate in all of US history”?
I mean, I can understand not wanting to look in the mirror, but right now the doctor is telling the GOP “We need to start chemo immediately, today”, and the GOP is telling itself that they are basically ok, they just got unlucky and wound up with a lemon.
Other than a submarine the fact that it is not sinking is what makes a vessel a ship.
(I’m assuming that you can not find any notable Democrats abandoning their nominee.)
@anjin-san:
“My party” didn’t nominate anyone. My state doesn’t even let independents vote in the primaries.
@michael reynolds:
She had a much better idea than Bernie did on how to break up the big banks, as well. I’ve no doubt she’d manage the Trump Taj with ruthless efficiency. (Hey, it’s shutting down on Labor Day! Buy it for a dollar!)
I’ve been reading the new Harry Potter book this weekend, and I find that Hermoine Granger is a pretty good analogue for Hillary Clinton. Smart women who get over shadowed by charismatic men, but are needed to make things run smoothly. (In the new book, Hermoine is now the MInister of Magic, hopefully a good omen.)
@Stormy Dragon:
More to the point they’ve spent a generation building up a Conservative Entertainment Complex that became more and more detached from reality. The only tenuous tie left is that there really are still Democrats and Republicans, and they can’t even get the name of the DemocratIC Party right. We’ve moved from the people like Gingrich, who made up the BS, to a generation of people like Cruz who’ve listened to it for thirty years and are dumb enough to believe it. I’ve noted before, conservatives believe their own BS. Rove could blather on about how the faith based faction would react faster than the reality based faction, but eventually detachment from reality bites you in the arse.
Part of Trump’s problem now is a tautology.
“I should be president because I’m a winner! I’m leading in all the polls! America needs a winner! That’s why all the TV shows love me!”
So, if you aren’t leading in any polls, you aren’t a winner. And if you’re rationale for running is “you’re a winner,” and you aren’t winning, well then what? And all the TV shows that propped you up with free advertising are going to tear you down.
@Facebones:
I think that’s a very apt comparison. Also, glad to see Hermione got a good job.
Well, for those who don’t like Hillary (hell, even for some of those who do), perhaps Amanda Waller is the more apt comparison…
@Stormy Dragon:
Well, there was a McClatchy-Marist poll released three days ago, wherein:
57% of Clinton voters are voting FOR Clinton, 40% are voting AGAINST Trump.
36% of Trump voters are voting FOR Trump, 57% are voting AGAINST Clinton.
That’s a 21 point gap.
Not surprising considering the primaries and what has happened since.
Clinton won a two candidate race while Trump won the primaries thanks to a huge field of candidates.
After the primaries Clinton has mended things with Sanders and almost all of his supporters, while Trump decided that he wanted to audition for President as a dumpster fire.
@Stormy Dragon: That points up the idea that this would be a unique opportunity for a third party. I know there would be problems and obstacles; that is to be expected with the way this thing have been set up. There is now a big movement on to include Gary Johnson and Weldon in the debates. People are looking and wanting alternatives. They are tired of the mainline news media controlling all of this, setting everything up, and telling them who they have to vote for.
Do not watch the mainline news media. It is sensationalized, hypped up opinion and propaganda. The same things are shown over and over. Their moderaters hollar at people. The real news and facts are ignored. It is a form of brain washing and mind control. Go to the alternative news sites and the radio.
@Stormy Dragon:
How did I miss this.
You are linking to an image from a July poll.
For the current Washington/ABC poll, among all adults:
50% of those supporting Clinton vote FOR her vs 46% who vote AGAINST Trump.
42% of those supporting Trump vote FOR him vs 52% who vote AGAINST Clinton.
Clinton +4 vs Trump -10.
Among registered voters, it’s 49-47 for Clinton voters and 40-56 for Trump voters.
Clinton +2 vs Trump -16.
So, 50% vs 46% and 49% vs 47% are both pluralities FOR Clinton. The first one may even be a majority…
@Stormy Dragon:
So that give you what – plausible deniability for the train wreck you helped create?
@Tyrell: the criteria for participation in the debates was set up 18 months ago: show that you poll 15% or more in a professional poll. If you can’t match that, you don’t get on stage with the big boys (or big gal, in this case.)
@Stormy Dragon: “She’s not even “cleaning up” against the Trump. I mean really, she’s up against the single worst major party candidate in all of US history and she’s only up by 8 points?”
Note that in 2008, when the GOP’s steaming pile of sh*t was hot on everybody’s plate, McCain and Sarah ‘Word Salad’ Palin got 45% of the vote.
@Stormy Dragon: ““My party” didn’t nominate anyone. My state doesn’t even let independents vote in the primaries.”
Music to my ears – I’ll bet that there will be very few admitted Republicans by November, and even fewer admitting that they ever even heard of Trump, much less supported him
@anjin-san:
He’s not a Republican, so you can’t fault him for “his” party.
He can be faulted for his unwillingness to do anything about it and his belief that doing nothing is the same as doing something.
I’m an independent. I didn’t vote in the primary. Does that give me an excuse to sit this one out? No. (There may be other excuses, but that ain’t one of ’em.)
This election actually matters. It may prove to be the most important one in my lifetime, on several levels.
It’s banal to quote rock lyrics, but I’ll do it anyway: If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
Wow. Even the commentators over at the WSJ are saying Trump is toast.
This is a must read:
J.R. Martinez to Donald Trump: Stop Disrespecting Military Veterans and Fallen Soldiers
And they throw up a paywall at your link for the privilege of gleaning their wisdom.
I can’t believe they don’t know about the back door to their items.
Just copy and paste the title “Donald Trump Tries a Campaign Reboot” into the Google Search window and voila, free WSJ!
(I suspect they know. Gotta’ wonder how many chumps pay for the service anyway.)
@Tyrell:
Forget it Tyrell, the world is divided entirely into that which is of The Party and that which is against The Party. Anything but total loyalty to The Party is forbidden.
Trump will be the worst president of entire world. He doesn’t have knowledge and mental capabilities to be in oval office.
Reports he never graduated from college.He is not showing his certificate. Trump used doctor certificate to avoid draft.He is not showing that. Trump is not showing hisTax returns. Trump married illegal immigrant? Why he is not showing her visa.
Trump is ill tempered. Trump insulted veterans, Generals, baby, a disabled woman…..
Trump is hoping Russia will help him by false documents through wikileaks.
No one should should believe them.
Assange in jail and he wants to get out by helping Trump.
During election time, don’t believe wikileaks. All made up fake documents.
@Mister Bluster: Thanks. I hadn’t noticed my direct link had turned into a pumpkin. (I followed a headline in Google News to the article, then clicked through to the comments.)
@Stormy Dragon:
You do realize that anchors aren’t bad things on ships, right? They’re necessary pieces of equipment using to stop aimless drifting and prevent a ship from being carried where you don’t want it to go. Anchors are the last stage of the journey, used to signify you’ve gotten to where you want to go. Nobody wants a weak or light anchor since it’s density needs to be proportionate to its function; you only jettson it’s weight when you absolutely need to. It’s solidness is the whole point of its existence.
Calling Hillary an anchor in this instance isn’t the insult you think it is.
@KM:
This.
If we are going to use boat metaphors.
Hilary for the Democratic Party is the anchor that is keeping the ship from being blown away in a large storm that is this election. Keeping the boat steady.
Trump is a mast that has been almost split in half in the middle of a level 5 hurricane. Causing the whole ship to wander off course in every direction except the one the Republican Party wants to go.
Also :
While Clinton has the emails, the Benghazi, etc.
Trump has this going on from actual experts, not radio/tv personalities.
TRUMP HAS BEEN UNWITTINGLY ‘PLAYED’ BY PUTIN: FORMER CIA CHIEF
@Stormy Dragon:
If you leaned left, then I would make some effort to explain to you why the US has and will continue to have a two-party system, and the role that spoilers play in helping the opposing side.
But since you lean right, keep up the good work!
@Pch101:
If you want a picture of the future imagine people being mean to brave independent thinkers on internet forums, forever.