YES, CLINTON IS SINKING IN THE POLLS. NO, YOU SHOULD NOT PANIC. HERE'S WHY.

“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.

Associated Press poll finds:

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:

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.

 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.
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. CreditMel 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.”

Hillary Clinton Is More Vulnerable in 2016 Than You Think

Hillary Rodham Clinton at an event for Emily's List in Washington on Tuesday. Credit Jabin Botsford/The New York Times       

N.Y. TIMES, NATE COHEN

Hillary Clinton is a primary candidate whose strength has little precedent, one who seems poised to sweep the primaries without facing any serious challenge.

The general election is a different story. Mrs. Clinton would not cruise to victory, and, yes, she could easily lose.

 

In the aftermath of President Obama’s re-election, it was common to suggest that Mrs. Clinton was an unusually formidable general election candidate, and the polls seemed to back it up. Her favorability ratings soared to the mid-60s during her tenure as secretary of state. In hypothetical head-to-head polling matchups, she even led in places such as Texas against home-state candidates like Rick Perry. Feeding the perception of her strength was the notion that Democrats had an advantage in presidential elections, given their sway among growing parts of the electorate, like young and nonwhite voters, and their apparent Electoral College advantage.

 

But Mrs. Clinton will not be a Democratic Eisenhower, a popular, senior statesperson who cruises to an easy victory. Her popularity has already faded considerably over the last two years. Her support could erode even further as the campaign unfolds, or as she comes under new scrutiny, be it for foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation, her private email account as secretary of state or new issues.

 

 

As many analysts predicted, her high ratings were unsustainable — her popularity the product of serving as the country’s top diplomat, partly shielded from domestic political criticism. Her ratings have returned to earth since her exit from the position in early 2013 — and since she has emerged as the likely Democratic nominee in the 2016 presidential election.

The polls now show her favorability rating beneath 50 percent, making her a fairly typical candidate for the presidency. Her numbers are much more similar to Mr. Obama’s and Mitt Romney’s ratings in late 2012 than her own ratings from two years ago. She has, in other words, gone back to being what Mr. Obama’s supporters alleged in 2008: a polarizing figure, just as Mr. Obama is today.

 

What’s notable about the recent decline in her approval rating is that it has returned to Mrs. Clinton’s apparently natural level of public support.

Her ratings started out high as first lady in 1993, as is often the case with that role, but dropped to the mid-40s when she pursued health reform. Her ratings surged during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, but returned to the mid-40s once she ran for Senate, and remained there through her 2008 presidential campaign. Her ratings recovered again after she withdrew from the 2008 race and was no longer active in day-to-day politics.

 

There is little about Mrs. Clinton’s electoral history that suggests she’s a stronger candidate than these ratings. As a Senate candidate in New York in 2000, she ran well behind Al Gore’s presidential election numbers in New York that year. Few defend her performance in the 2008 presidential primaries. If anything, the extent to which she was criticized by the left has largely been forgotten. As Slate’s Alec MacGillis put it, there is “a sort of collective amnesia among Obama supporters when it comes to their former estimation of Clinton — a reluctance to reckon fully with their aversion to her then and what has come of it since.”

 

Photo by Andrew Kelly/Reuters

 

Although it’s true that Democrats have fared well in recent presidential elections, there is no guarantee their success will continue. In 2016, the Democratic nominee will have to argue for a third term for the party... At the moment, Mr. Obama’s approval ratings and the pace of economic growth are consistent with a close, competitive race...

 

There were signs in last year’s midterm elections that dissatisfaction with Mr. Obama’s performance was costing Democrats among white voters without a college degree, most obviously in the countryside of Iowa and Colorado. Those 2014 results suggest that Republicans have a route to winning the White House, even if it’s a narrower one than the Democrats’ path.

Yes, Mrs. Clinton has a large lead over her likeliest Republican challengers in national polls, including in many of the most important battleground states. But general-election polls more than a year before Election Day have little meaning...

 

 There is also evidence, especially in state polling, that Mrs. Clinton’s support from traditionally Democratic, white, conservative voters is unsustainable — especially in the South and Appalachia.

 

None of this is not to say that Mrs. Clinton is a weak candidate. Mr. Obama won re-election, after all, despite evolving into a polarizing figure. Her favorability rating is better than that of any of her Republican opponents, who are all poised to become just as polarizing as she. There is a case that she will be a better candidate than she was in 2008, when she was widely caricatured as calculating and unlikable. Many believed that she was already a much stronger candidate by the time the 2008 campaign was over.

 

(Matt Rourke/AP Photo)

 

If Mrs. Clinton does prove to be a particularly adept candidate, given how close the race shapes up to be, it could make a significant difference. But at least for now, her favorability ratings don’t resemble those of an especially strong candidate. The better argument for her strength would be the demographic advantages of today’s Democratic coalition.

If the Democrats have such an advantage, then Mrs. Clinton, a person who has engendered great loyalty from many Democratic-leaning voters, may be the candidate best positioned to reassemble that coalition...

   

ELIZABETH WARREN: THE 'GREAT WHITE HOPE' OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY?

CHRIS CILLIZZA WASHINGTON POST

Quick, name someone who would have a realistic chance of beating out Hillary Clinton for the 2016 presidential nomination. Martin O’Malley? Nope. Joe Biden? Maybe but probably not. Howard Dean. No way. There’s only answer to that question that makes even a little sense. And that answer is Elizabeth Warren.

The New Republic’s Noam Scheiber hits this nail directly on the head in his cover story this week entitled “Hillary’s Nightmare? A Democratic Party That Realizes Its Soul Lies with Elizabeth Warren“. The entire piece is worth a read but this paragraph stood out to us:

In addition to being strongly identified with the party’s populist wing, any candidate who challenged Clinton would need [two] key assets. The candidate would almost certainly ....have to amass huge piles of money with relatively little effort. Above all, she would have to awaken in Democratic voters an almost evangelical passion. As it happens, there is precisely such a person. Her name is Elizabeth Warren.

Scheiber’s broader argument is this: The Democratic party is facing a looming debate between those friendly and those hostile to Wall Street and its interests come 2016. Clinton is on the friendly side. Warren isn’t. And all of the grassroots energy in the Democratic party — as judged by activists and what animates them — sits on Warren’s side.
Need evidence? Check out the $42 million Warren raised in her 2012 Senate victory over Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown. Or, as Scheiber notes, the massive response her fundraising emails get for the national party — trailing only asks from President Obama and, yes, Hillary Clinton.  Or watch Warren’s speech and, more importantly, the reaction to her speech, at the 2012 Democratic National Convention.

 Clinton represents the head of the Democratic party. But Warren is its heart. We’ve touched on this idea in this space before, noting that in many ways Warren is the liberal populist that liberals thought they were getting when they elected President Obama in 2008. The New York Times’ Rebecca Traister wrote about this phenomenon, describing Warren and Obama this way:

Embracing Warren as the next ‘one’ is, in part, a way of getting over Obama; she provides an optimistic distraction from the fact that under our current president, too little has changed, for reasons having to do both with the limitations of the political system and the limitations of the man. She makes people forget that estimations of him were too overheated, trust in his powers too fervid.

But, there’s more to Warren — and her differences from Obama and Clinton — than simply her willingness to stake out unapologetically liberal positions. It’s the way she does it, a sort of quiet confrontation — yes, we know that seems contradictory — that has created an image of her as one of the only people (in either party) willing to speak truth to the political and financial powers-that-be. It’s that willingness to confront that, more than anything else, has turned Warren into an Internet sensation – her You Tube channel is littered with speeches that have been viewed more than 1 million times, she is regularly part of highly-trafficked items on Reddit.com — and given her a base of political power that lies outside the Senate chamber and, more importantly, beyond the long reach of the Clintons.
All of the above comes with two big caveats: 1) Warren and her people insist she has no interest in running for president and she has already signed a letter supporting Clinton for president and 2) She is untested on the national stage and/or against an opponent as able as Clinton. Warren, for all of the passion she creates in others, is not the Dean-like populist firebrand (at least not yet) on the campaign trail. She often comes across as wonky rather than “wow”.  She’s heavily focused on policy, not politics.

And yet, a path does exist for Warren.  As Clinton learned in 2008, a candidate that appeals to voters’ hearts can beat a candidate that appeals to their heads.  And Clinton, for all of her built-in advantages in a 2016 race, will be hard pressed to ever be the heart candidate of the party base. Elizabeth Warren would be that candidate the minute she signals her interest in running. That fact should scare Clinton and her political team.

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GREG SARGENT WASHINGTON POST

I doubt Warren is running — her statement to the Boston Globe yesterday seemed pretty definitive. However, Warren’s speech to the Roosevelt Institute is definitely worth noting as a touchstone in a larger Democratic Party argument that may well unfold right through 2016. In it, she calls for a reinstatement of Glass-Steagall (by the way, do you remember which Democratic president presided over the repeal of that law? He’s a Clinton, too) and frames the big story this way:

I spent most of my career studying the growing economic pressures on middle class families — families that worked hard and played by the rules but still can’t get ahead. And I’ve also studied the financial services industry and how it has developed over time. [...]
We should not accept a financial system that allows the biggest banks to emerge from a crisis in record-setting shape while working Americans continue to struggle.  And we should not accept a regulatory system that is so besieged by lobbyists for the big banks that it takes years to deliver rules and then the rules that are delivered are often watered-down and ineffective.
What we need is a system that puts an end to the boom and bust cycle.  A system that recognizes we don’t grow this country from the financial sector; we grow this country from the middle class.
Powerful interests will fight to hang on to every benefit and subsidy they now enjoy.  Even after exploiting consumers, larding their books with excessive risk, and making bad bets that brought down the economy and forced taxpayer bailouts, the big Wall Street banks are not chastened. They have fought to delay and hamstring the implementation of financial reform, and they will continue to fight every inch of the way. That’s the battlefield.  That’s what we’re up against. 

The key to the speech is that it amounts to a sweeping indictment of the whole economic system that unapologetically deprives the financial sector for all the credit for economic growth. In this, Warren goes farther than many Democrats, who support progressive taxation and nominal Wall Street regulation, but “still fundamentally believe the economy functions best with a large, powerful, highly complex financial sector,” as Scheiber puts it.
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...Warren is talking about a much deeper level of reform designed to address inequalities resulting from the upward transfer of “a giant share of the money flowing through the system,” reform that gets to the core question of “what kind of economy we want for all of our citizens.”

...as I understand Scheiber’s argument, his primary point is that Warren’s popularity and appeal reveal the presence of larger political forces within the Democratic Party that Clinton should take very seriously, whether or not Warren runs. Warren’s speech today is a good marker for understanding the potential for tensions among divisions among Democrats on these issues, which look very real.