Hillary's historically bad approval ratings

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This November we could be looking at a dismal choice of nominees and a lot of people asking how did things get this broken?

Hillary Clinton’s favorability ratings are historically low and increasingly a concern for her supporters.

Clinton is now viewed unfavorably by 55 percent of the electorate, according to the HuffPost Pollster average, which tracks findings from 42 different polling outfits. Only 40.2 percent of people view her favorably, according to that average.

An Associated Press/GfK poll released last week also found 55 percent giving Clinton an unfavorable rating. In the most recent Gallup poll, released late last month, her unfavorable number was 53 percent versus only 42 percent who saw her favorably.

Even Democrats acknowledge those findings are a problem.

“They’re pretty bad,” said Democratic strategist Brad Bannon, who connected the poor poll numbers to separate findings that show a broad number of Americans don’t trust Clinton.

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The historic comparisons are stark. At this point in the 2008 presidential cycle, then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) was seen favorably by 62 percent of voters and unfavorably by just 33 percent. Even in February 2012, the closest comparable point in his re-election campaign, he had a net positive favorability rating in the Gallup poll of 2 percentage points, compared to Clinton’s current net rating of minus 11.

In March 2000, then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush (R) was viewed favorably by 63 percent of respondents in the Gallup poll and unfavorably by 32 percent.

The saving grace for Clinton is the messy Republican primary, where the two leading vote-getters are politicians who fare even worse in the favorability index.

Donald Trump was viewed unfavorably by a full 65 percent in the most recent Gallup poll and favorably by only 29 percent, a net rating of minus 36 points. Cruz fared better than Trump but still worse than Clinton, at net minus 16 points, 32 percent favorable to 48 percent unfavorable.

“It’s like that story of two guys running from a bear,” said Bannon. “One says, ‘We better run real fast,’ and the other says, ‘I don’t have to run faster than the bear. I only have to run faster than you.’ Hillary Clinton doesn’t have to be great. She just has to be better than Donald Trump or Ted Cruz.”

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wrote this a while ago.

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Bill Clinton is the only real historical similarity. His numbers show the importance of conventions - which turned his numbers around. However, Clinton in '92 is much less well known than Hillary in '16.

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And of course, there is a huge gap among the young. I suspect Clinton's pick will try to address this gap.

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Hawkfish's picture

I've seen some data suggests that a better correlate than youth is Internet news consumer. It would be typical if she picked someone "young" who had a bad internet footprint!

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We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg

think they are capable of being dumb enough to think a young New Dem will solve theit problem.

There is one pick that can help them: Elizabeth Warren.

I wonder if they know that.

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Dhyerwolf's picture

I would expect that if there is a obvious choice that seemingly anyone could pick versus a horrible choice, they'll go for the horrible choice. Point in case, the fact that Julian Castro is considered by a front runner for her VP pick.

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PastorAgnostic's picture

Young and Intern.

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Hawkfish's picture

My mother in law has a book about people who survived bear attacks (she's from Alaska). This actually happened once, and the bear (a grizzly) took out the first guy and kept after the second! I forget which of them survived.

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We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg

So I might need to know how that story ends

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One way to drive down voter participation meanwhile making it more expensive to even compete, pretty much an attack on democracy itself.

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Older and Wiser Now's picture

It's as if we are watching the oligarchy thumb their noses at us right before our eyes.

Bernie Sanders is clearly the People's Choice. It doesn't make sense if this were a real democracy.

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~OaWN

snoopydawg's picture

Being together at one of their parties, or maybe at Chelsea's wedding cooking up a scheme for Trump to run as a joke. But the Clintons had no idea that so many people would support him.

She thought she had this election in the bag until Bernie decided that he was sick of the lesser evils bullshit and decided to give people a chance to vote for some one who has the values that the Democratic Party used to have before Clinton sold it out by creating the DNC.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

lunachickie's picture

I believe that happened, or something like it. When they learned about Sanders, they probably decided they could deal with it. But the underlying idea all along was for Trump to be so over-the-top that he'd make Hillary look oh-so-good. These are calculating people. They knew Hillary has "likability" and "honesty" issues, so they figured having a wackadoodle run on the Other Side would mask that to a certain extent.

They just insisted on foregoing the understanding needed to get the part where "The Internet can vet you in a matter of seconds". It's not the 1990s anymore.

(Umm, as my stepson might say, #herpaderp Smile )

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- Don't assume Trump will be the GOP candidate.

- Don't assume that the young/internet tuned will give a damn who Clinton picks for VP. Part of their awareness will be that they know that it doesn't make any difference at all, VP is just window dressing.

- GOP/Koch etc have kept their powder dry WRT Clinton. We ain't seen nuthin' yet for bad favorability, although it's hard to see how it could get much worse. I actually would not be at all surprised if the shit hits the fan on the FBI investigation at some late point and she has to drop out of the race, maybe even after the convention.

There ain't no way no how that Clinton is going to be President, or her handpicked Dem Establishment Replacement (Biden) unless Trump mounts a strong 3rd party candidacy or Sanders is the nominee.

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