As it Turns Out, Favorability Polls Mean a Lot
One of the biggest topics of discussion and concern in this primary is the question of electability. Hillary supporters have managed to create an aura of electability around Hillary — she is proven, battle-tested, and well-known, and above all she has incredibly high favourability ratings among the Democratic party faithful.
Her favourability among Democrats, however, does not translate to the general electorate.
I have made the point many times that Hillary’s favourability ratings among Democrats are inversely proportional to her favorables among Americans in general. This translates into disaster in a general election.
To me, it has for a long time been an elephant in the room that no one in Democratic circles wanted to talk about. Clinton supporters have always demonstrated an amazing capacity for downplaying or simply ignoring this problem, preferring instead to characterise Hillary as a victim of Right-Wing attacks and media bias who is wholly undeserving of the disdain and disfavour that is currently being heaped on her by the general public.
I agree that much of the criticism and “bad press” that Hillary has incurred is unwarranted, groundless, or just plain irrelevant. But that does not change the facts on the ground.
Yes, Benghazi was B.S., BUT ….
Kevin McCarthy made a gaffe when he accidentally spoke the truth about the reasoning behind the Benghazi committee. But part of that truth was that in the end the whole Benghazi scandal had a very negative effect upon the Hillary brand:
"Everybody though Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?" McCarthy asked. "But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she's untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought."
So yes, the Clinton camp had a victory in that the true nature of the Benghazi probe was revealed. The only problem was that it was an empty victory — there was no major change in Hillary’s unfavorable ratings from September (51.9%) to October (50.3%), after McCarthy’s revelation.
I never could see how Hillary could overcome a majority unfavorable rating among the general electorate. After all, Hillary has been in public life for 25 years. She has virtually 100% name recognition, and whereas 20% of those polled may not know enough about Bernie Sanders to render an opinion about him, only 1% say that about Hillary.
In writing about this trend, Eric Zuesse, an investigative historian at Global Research said:
What the chart shows is that Hillary Clinton’s Presidential appeal to the electorate that will matter on Election Day in November 2016 has been plunging ever since around January of 2013 — or more than two years ago. She was vastly more attractive to the American electorate as a prospective President two years ago than she is today.
We Need to Ask Some Hard Questions
My FIRST question:
Can a person with a majority unfavourable rating still win the Presidency?
For that I turned to the number crunchers at 538. I Tweeted a simple question to Harry Enten: can a candidate with the high negatives that Hillary has win a general election for President?
The answer: NO.
If Hillary’s Negatives Make her Unelectable, What Can Be Done?
My SECOND question thus became:
Can Hillary reverse 2 years of decreasing favourable ratings over the course of a few months, and during an election cycle?
The answer to this is of course less clear. But we do know this:
In April 2015, when Bernie entered the race, Hillary’s “unfavourable” rating was 47%, according to the Huffpost Pollster. They now stand at 52% (with PPP putting her at 55% and YouGov at 54%). So the Primary race is not doing anything to change people’s minds about her.
That leaves the general. Could Hillary see a spike in her favorable ratings after she wins the Primary against Bernie? Maybe. But something tells me that her attacks on Bernie are not helping to earn her points with the general electorate. I could be wrong, but the polls that have appeared following the last Democratic Debate still showed Hillary with a 14 point “net negative” when it came to approval ratings. And I have got to believe that the GOP will be merciless in their attacks on Hillary during the general election, and they will not hesitate to raise 25 years of scandals and smears during the race.
So no — I do not believe that Hillary’s high unfavorable ratings will reverse themselves in the coming months.
Bernie Sanders as Nominee?
My final and most important question then became the obvious one:
Should Democrats do their best to ensure that Bernie Sanders wins the nomination?
If my thesis about the importance of “net positive” favourability ratings is true, then we should do everything we can to make sure Bernie is the nominee. Indeed, Bernie is the only candidate with a “net positive” rating among the general electorate; even people who may not agree with him give him high marks for honesty and authenticity. His conciliatory statements about Hillary’s emails and even lately about Bill Clinton have only heightened that perception.
In 2004 we were told that the “Beer Buddy Factor” played a major role in re-electing George Bush. John Kerry was seen as too effete, too upper crust, and not down to earth in the way W. was. The American people, we were told, could much more easily see themselves enjoying a beer with the twangy, folksy Bush rather than with the French-speaking, windsurfing Kerry.
My point is that if such “gut” feelings do indeed play a role in our elections, and if indeed there is no record of anyone gaining the Presidency with such high and persistent negative ratings as Hillary Clinton, then we should all consider making Bernie Sanders the nominee.