“Hillary Clinton has emerged from the F.B.I. investigation into her email practices as secretary of state a wounded candidate with a large and growing majority of voters saying she cannot be trusted, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. As Mrs. Clinton prepares to accept the Democratic Party’s nomination at the convention in Philadelphia this month, she will confront an electorate in which 67 percent of voters say she is not honest and trustworthy. That number is up five percentage points from a CBS News poll conducted last month, before the F.B.I. released its findings.”
The new New York Times/CBS poll finds that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are now tied among registered voters nationally, at 40-40, with the email story taking an obvious toll on Clinton’s numbers. The key findings:
Mrs. Clinton’s six-percentage-point lead over the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald J. Trump, in a CBS News poll last month has evaporated. The two candidates are now tied in a general election matchup, the new poll indicates, with each receiving the support of 40 percent of voters….Just 28 percent of voters said they had a positive view of Mrs. Clinton, compared with 33 percent last month. Asked if her email practices were illegal, 46 percent of voters said yes, compared with 23 percent who said using a private server was improper but not illegal. Twenty-four percent said she did nothing wrong.
Eighty-one percent of Americans say they would feel afraid following the election of one of the two polarizing politicians….Fifty-seven percent have an unfavorable view of Clinton, compared to 37 percent who have a favorable view. Sixty-three percent have a negative view of Trump, compared to the 31 percent who think well of him.
GREG SARGENT, WASHINGTON POST
Those are awful numbers. But as even some conservatives (who oppose Trump) quickly pointed out on twitter, the real story here is that even if Clinton is sinking, Trump is not rising. As John Podhoretz noted, the Times poll confirms that “Hillary is deflating,” but “Trump isn’t gaining.” Or as conservative Iowa radio host Steve Deace put it, Clinton is dropping because of the FBI findings, but Trump’s numbers are “still dreadful as always.” As polling analyst Will Jordan noted, until Trump breaks out of the high 30s and (extremely) low 40s, there’s no clear grounds for Dems to panic.
Beyond the fact that Clinton still holds a lead after getting hit by sustained awful coverage, note that Trump has not hit 43 percent since last winter, and has not hit 42 percent since the spring. He remains at around 40 percent right now. Meanwhile, Clinton has fluctuated, hitting highs of 48 percent and 47 percent several times. She’s sliding now, but as Deace noted, that may reflect current negative information about her now bombarding voters. It could reverse again, just as it has in the past.
This basic difference isn’t just evident in the national polls. Mark Murray and the First Read Crew took a hard look at the multiple state polls released yesterday (which also prompted a freak-out), and concluded that while Trump is closing the gap, there is also this crucial point:
This core dynamic is central to how Democrats view this race. They have undertaken a concerted effort to drive up Trump’s negatives with the explicit goal of preventing him from expanding his appeal. That’s why the pro-Clinton Super PAC, Priorities USA, has been pumping many millions of dollars of ads into the battleground states, ads that use Trump’s own words and antics to sow deep doubts about his temperament and fitness to be president.These polls — which mostly show Clinton either ahead or tied in these battlegrounds — were all taken during or after Clinton’s roughest week of the general election, with FBI Director James Comey’s rebuke over her emails. So you could view these battleground numbers as a floor for Clinton, while Trump is still unable to break 40% in many of these states.
The goal is to prevent Trump, whose campaign is all about winning blue collar whites in the industrial Midwest, from making inroads among college educated whites, which would limit the potential of Trump’s strategy of courting white backlash. (This may also drive up turnout and Clinton’s vote share among nonwhite voters, which would make the white-backlash strategy even tougher to pull off.) Polls suggest Trump may end up being the first GOP nominee in decades to lose among college educated whites — see Ron Brownstein’s terrific analysis on this point — and Democrats are targeting suburban and Republican women in particular to try to make this happen.
Now, it is of course very possible that Trump will begin to rise, or that Clinton will continue falling. Things could change once Team Trump starts spending big on ads and Team Clinton’s ad barrage no longer goes unanswered. But the point is that, even if it is true that Clinton is sliding, there is still no evidence that Trump can expand his appeal in the manner he needs to. And that’s why senior Democratic pollsters are not terribly alarmed and believe we can’t really have a clear sense of where this race is going until the conventions have passed.
E.J. DIONNE, WASHINGTON POST
The year’s political cliche is that Americans will be choosing this fall between two of the most unpopular presidential candidates in our republic’s history. Hillary Clinton is in the midst of a concerted effort to change that story line. And the not-so-distant past suggests that she has a fighting chance of succeeding.
The assumption behind the debatable cliche is that while a disliked candidate can win by arguing that her opponent is even worse, politicians’ unfavorable ratings are something of a constant. As it happens, voters are willing to revisit their opinions and often start liking someone they once dismissed.
Lesson No. 1 comes from Clinton’s husband in 1992. Hammered by a series of highly negative reports about his personal life and draft record, candidate Bill Clinton’s favorable rating in the New York Times/CBS poll stood at a mere 16 percent in June.
But Bill Clinton had a great Democratic convention, the independent Ross Perot dropped out of the race (he later reentered), and Clinton began climbing. Just before the election, his favorable rating reached 42 percent, not spectacular but sufficient for victory.
Lesson No. 2 is offered by George H.W. Bush in 1988, who sought the presidency after two terms as Ronald Reagan’s vice president. Going into the summer, Bush looked to many like a sure loser, and his favorable rating was just 26 percent. But Bush also had a good convention. By November, his favorable rating was up to 46 percent.
RealClearPolitics’ current average of Hillary Clinton’s favorability is a comparatively healthy 39.7 percent. There is an important caveat: Bill Clinton was not a familiar figure when he announced his candidacy, and it took a while for many voters to form an opinion about him, positive or negative. And despite Bush’s durability in public life, a large share of the electorate took its time in solidifying its views about him as well.
There is also no doubt that Hillary Clinton has suffered some damage from FBI Director James B. Comey’s sharp criticisms of her use of a private email server. If a candidate’s standing can change for the better, it can also change for the worse.
Still, there is reason to believe that Clinton, like Bush and her husband, has an opportunity to win over new sympathizers, especially because voters have revised their judgments in her favor before. Her favorable ratings in the Gallup poll reached as high as 67 percent in late December 1998, and 66 percent in May 2012.
In principle, of course, Donald Trump can also improve his ratings, and may well do so at next week’s Republican convention. But Clinton almost certainly has more room to grow than Trump does, given her past high marks and the fact that even at her lowest points this year, Clinton’s favorability still has outpaced Trump’s in most surveys.
Clinton’s robust attacks on Trump have received wide attention. Less noticed are her campaign’s efforts to restore her image. Its recent multimillion-dollar advertising blitz in swing states has involved soft-focused messages touting her commitment to children’s needs and her bipartisan work for the children’s health-care program passed during her husband’s presidency.
Bush, who sought to succeed a popular and historically significant president of his own party, remains Clinton’s best role model. Like her, Bush struggled against a hostile conventional wisdom. In October 1987, Newsweek, reflecting the political talk of the time, ran a cover story on Bush under the headline “Fighting the ‘Wimp Factor.’ ” A little over a year later, Bush was vindicated by the voters. Clinton is battling for history to cast a similar smile her way.
 |
| Tim Tebow, a former N.F.L. quarterback who played for the Philadelphia Eagles last year, is scheduled to speak on the fourth night of the Republican National Convention. Mel Evans/Associated Press |
* LIST OF GUEST SPEAKERS SUGGESTS THRILLING GOP CONVENTION: Jeremy Peters obtains a list of speakers set to appear at the GOP convention. Among them: Former football star Tim Tebow, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, Senator Tom Cotton, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, Scott Walker, a whole bunch of Trumps, and last but decidedly not least, Senator Joni Ernst.
Special bonus preview that will have millions of Americans grinding their teeth with anticipation and excitement: The convention will feature presentations on Benghazi and, as the Times puts it, “former President Bill Clinton’s sexual misconduct.”
Speaking of the Republican convention, here’s GOP strategist Rick Wilson, speaking of the Democratic convention:
“Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Elizabeth Warren — they’re all going to be out there swinging for the fences. But the Republicans, it’ll be like a hostage video of people forced on stage.”