Hey, what do you know. Sometimes doing the right thing is also the right thing.
Hillary Clinton has moved ahead of Donald Trump in trust to handle terrorism, boosted by her response to the Orlando attack. …
Mirroring her rebound in the overall race for the White House, Clinton leads Trump by 50-39 percent in trust to handle terrorism in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates. That’s similar to the gap in March after a more closely divided view last month.
In the immediate aftermath of the shootings in Orlando, Donald Trump renewed his calls for banning Muslims into the country, for attacks overseas, for new restrictions on immigrants, for surveillance of Muslim Americans, and warned Hillary Clinton would allow terrorists to “pour” into the country to “enslave women and murder gays.”
Hillary Clinton responded with a powerful speech that called for measures against the kind of “lone wolf” killers like Omar Mateen and revived the idea that being on a terrorist watch list should place limits on someone’s ability to buy weapons—especially weapons as devastating as the one used at Pulse.
Two weeks later, it’s Clinton’s message that is sticking with the public.
More think she did a better job than Trump responding to the attacks overall (by 18 points, 46-28 percent) and showed better temperament in her response (by 34 points, 59-25 percent). Looking forward, more say Clinton gave them confidence that she could handle a similar incident as president (+19 points vs. Trump, 53-34 percent). She also prevails, albeit more narrowly, in having better proposals for preventing future attacks (+9 points, 44-35 percent).
The idea that Republicans are better equipped to deal with terrorist incidents has persisted in the public mind despite all evidence to the contrary. However a combination of Clinton’s forceful, fact-based approach and Trump’s over-the-top ranting was enough to finally shift voters on this issue.
The detailed results also confirm another factor in Clinton’s rising poll numbers: The rapid movement of Sanders supporters to Hillary.
Clinton’s biggest gains in overall trust to handle terrorism came among some key groups, including those who preferred Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination, white men and white Catholics, as well as among Democrats in general. Trump lost ground in most of these groups, as well as (slightly) among men overall, those without a college degree and liberals.
Donald Trump has lost the edge Republicans once enjoyed on the issue of terrorism. And his pandering to Sanders’ voters is not working. That’s not just good news for Hillary Clinton: That’s plain good news.