Several presidential polls conducted this week have shown that voters are largely dissatisfied with the front-runners they chose in this election.
With Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump well on their way to winning their parties’ nominations, polls reveal that more than half of all voters have a deeply negative opinion of both candidates.
That raises troubling questions about whether such an approach could hurt voter turnout in November, as the United States grapples with an economic crisis and a growing terrorist threat at home and abroad — and the country needs experienced, trustworthy and stable leadership in an increasingly perilous world.
The latest polls conducted by major polling media outlets have shocked the political community, which has focused most of its attention on the frontrunners and much less on what voters really think about their choices.
“More than half of voters have unfavorable views of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump,” the CBS/New York Times poll found. Both have “net negative ratings in the double digits.”
As the Times reports, with more than half the states holding primaries or party meetings, polls show that “registered voters nationwide now have an unfavorable view of the current political party favorites.”
“Compared to the frontrunners in previous presidential primaries, Trump and Clinton’s unfavorable ratings (57 percent and 52 percent, respectively) are the highest in a CBS/New York Times poll conducted since 1984, when the question began being asked,” the station reported.
Since the start of his campaign, Trump, a real estate mogul and former reality TV star, has waged a disgraceful campaign, hurling insults at his opponents and inciting violence at rallies, telling supporters, “I’d like to punch him in the face,” and at another rally, saying he’d like to “beat the crap out of” his protesters.
As President Obama’s former secretary of state, Clinton navigated two scandals that continue to question her integrity and judgment.
Her misuse of an unsecure, privately installed computer system through which she sent classified State Department information remains under investigation by the FBI and other federal agencies. And her failure to provide enhanced security at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, led to a terrorist attack and the deaths of four Americans, including our own U.S. Ambassador, whose pleas for increased protection were ignored.
It’s not just Republicans who doubt her story: forty percent of Democratic primary voters believe she lacks integrity and can’t be trusted.
And it’s not just the two leading candidates who are suffering from negative voter ratings, but their parties as well. Only 28 percent have a positive view of the GOP, compared to 46 percent who had a positive view of the Democratic Party.
However, as the Times reported this week, while about four in 10 Republican voters said they disapproved of Trump’s handling of violence at his rallies, 46 percent of voters in the primary said they “would like to see Mr. Trump as the party’s nominee.”
Interestingly, polls also show that “Democrats are more divided on their candidates,” as the race has narrowed significantly between Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
The results show that Democratic voters are far more excited about the candidacy of the feisty, self-proclaimed socialist than Clinton, who has promised to continue Obama’s policies and agenda.
“Over the past month, enthusiasm for Mrs. Clinton among Democratic voters has fallen eight percentage points to 40 percent, while enthusiasm for Mr. Sanders has risen 12 percentage points to 56 percent,” the Times reported.
Still, more than seven in 10 Democratic voters say they expect Clinton to win their party’s nomination.
Surprisingly, however, in hypothetical pre-election matchups with Trump, Sanders beats him “by 15 percentage points, while Mrs. Clinton wins by 10 points,” the Times reports.
Interestingly, she has a slight lead over Texas Senator Ted Cruz, but Ohio Governor John Kasich “is the only Republican with an advantage over Mrs. Clinton in November.”
So this election year, a strange political dichotomy is brewing: The frontrunners, Clinton and Trump, are clearly ahead in the delegate race. But they also “elicit the most skepticism and negativity from voters nationwide and within their parties,” the Times notes.
In Trump’s case, there’s his irate, explosive temperament. His wild proposals include imposing massive tariffs on imported goods that would hurt struggling, low-income consumers and, most recently, a proposal to reduce U.S. support for NATO and the defense of Europe in the face of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and elsewhere.
No wonder, as the Times puts it, “half of all voters said they would be scared if Mr. Trump were elected president, while another 19 percent said they would be concerned.”
Their fears may have been heightened when Trump said that if he were to deny him the nomination, even with delegate approval, “there would be a riot.”
Sixty percent of voters in the Republican primary said they were embarrassed by the tone of the party’s presidential campaign.
Clinton is raising similar concerns among voters: 35 percent say they would be scared if she won the White House. Another 21 percent said they would be worried.
Americans are going through a turbulent period in their political history. Some predict that it will lead to the breakdown of our country’s institutions of government.
It won’t work. James Madison and our other Founding Fathers designed a self-correcting democratic system to ultimately overcome harmful rebellions like this one.
