Poll: Hillary Clinton Weakens on Trustworthiness While Jeb Bush Slides Into GOP Free-For-All
Weakening ratings for Hillary Clinton present opportunities for her potential Republican opponents, even as their own contest morphs into an all-out free-for-all, with Jeb Bush surrendering his frontrunner status in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll.
Bush, at the same time, has even greater difficulties with personal favorability than Clinton, and a far weaker home base. He’s lost 11 points in support for the nomination among Republicans and GOP-leaning independents who are registered to vote, from a front-running 21 percent in March to 10 percent now,
His difficulties include baggage from his brother’s administration; the public by an 18-point margin disapproves of how he’s answered questions about whether he would have ordered the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. And 55 percent of Americans see Bush as out of touch with the concerns of average Americans – a greater weakness for him than this measure is for Clinton.
Perhaps most alarmingly for her campaign, the number who see Clinton as honest and trustworthy has dropped from 53 percent a year ago, then 46 percent two months ago, to 41 percent now. Fifty-two percent now don’t see her as honest and trustworthy, the most, again, since April 2008. And while she’s 11 points underwater on this score, Bush is +5, 45-40 percent
Just 31 percent of Americans approve of the way she’s handled questions about her use of personal e-mail while secretary of state; 55 percent disapprove.
Bush's decline in support for his party’s nomination is broadly based, but notable among some groups. He’s down 18 points among evangelical white Protestants, 16 points among moderates and 12 points among Republicans (as opposed to GOP-leaning independents). He led in these groups in March, but with these declines he has fallen into the general pack.
Hillary still holds a commanding lead among Democratic leaning voters.
Whatever her difficulties, Clinton commands 62 percent support for the nomination among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who are registered to vote. Joe Biden has 14 percent support and Bernie Sanders steps into Elizabeth Warren’s shoes with 10 percent.
Here are the candidate matchups from the new
CNN/ORC poll
Clinton 51% Bush 43%
Clinton 49% Rubio 46%
Clinton 48% Paul 47%
Clinton 49% Walker 46%
Clinton 52% Cruz 43%
I realize we're still 16 months away from the 2016 election and early polls won't mean much by Fall of next year as different issues from the ones cited in these polls (like Clinton's emails) are likely to come to the forefront during the election. But it will be interesting to see if subsequent polls confirm these trends.