WASHINGTON POST, GREG SARGENT
As the GOP convention gets underway in Cleveland today, three national polls released over the weekend showed Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump: A CNN poll putting Clinton up by 49-42; an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll putting her up by 46-41; and a Washington Post/ABC News poll putting her up by 47-43.
But buried beneath the toplines is evidence of another dynamic that gets at something important about the state of this race: While both Clinton and Trump are very unpopular, large majorities in two of these polls believe that only one of them is qualified for the presidency, and equally large majorities believe that the other one is not.
The new WaPo poll finds, for instance, that Americans say by 59-39 that Clinton is “qualified to serve as president,” but they also say by 60-37 that Trump is “not qualified to serve as president.”
The WaPo poll also finds that 59 percent of Americans say that Clinton has the “better personality and temperament to serve effectively as president,” while only 28 percent of Americans say that about Trump.
Meanwhile, the new CNN poll finds that Americans say by 64-36 that Clinton “has the right experience to be president.” But they say by 67-32 that Trump does not have “the right experience to be president.”
This is the story that lurks underneath the widespread lament that Americans are unhappy with the two candidates. It’s true that both are disliked: These polls show, variously, that Clinton and Trump are both viewed very negatively; that neither is seen as more trustworthy than the other; that majorities would not be proud to have either as president; and that majorities think both are out of touch with everyday Americans’ problems. They also show vulnerabilities for Clinton in certain areas: For instance, Trump is favored more on the economy, and the email story has raised serious concerns for many voters about Clinton’s judgment. But regardless, only one of the two candidates is seen, by large margins, to be qualified for the job, while the other one is seen as unqualified by margins that are at least as large.
This could end up mattering. Nate Silver recently suggested a useful framework for thinking about this campaign: One way Trump might be able to win is if Americans “come to view the race as one between two equally terrible choices, instead of Trump being uniquely unacceptable.” One way that might notcome to pass is if majorities of Americans — while disliking and mistrusting both — continue believing that Trump, unlike Clinton, is simply unfit for the job on a very fundamental level. That’s how Trump might remain a “uniquely unacceptable” choice for president in the eyes of a majority of Americans.
Meanwhile, the new WaPo/ABC poll has Obama’s approval at 56 percent, and the new NBC poll has Obama’s approval at 51 percent. Naturally, the speakers at the GOP convention will spend four straight days describing the Obama presidency as a full blown, irredeemable disaster, since it cannot possibly be true (in the minds of Republicans, anyway) that a majority approves of his performance.
DO REPUBLICANS SECRETLY FEAR A TRUMP VICTORY? E.J. Dionne has a nice look at the history of the GOP and the damage it may be doing to itself by nominating Trump. Note this:
Many Republicans oppose Trump because they see him as the one candidate most likely to lose to Hillary Clinton. But others fear something worse: a Trump victory. They know that his presidency would represent a grave danger to the republic, a repudiation of the most noble Republican aspirations, and the end of their party as a serious vehicle for governance. The GOP can survive a Trump defeat. It will never get over being permanently defined by his politics of flippant brutality.