Some very good news for all of us, but especially for those downers who claim that Hillary would lose to Trump (for sure!) or that Millenials would not vote for Hillary because they would just not come out for her at all. Apparently Millenials didn’t get that memo.
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Opposition to Trump nearly unites the rising generation.
In a hypothetical Clinton v. Trump contest in November, voters under 35 would choose Clinton by a crushing 52%-19%, a preference that crosses demographic lines.
Among whites, she'd be backed by nearly 2-1, 45%-26%. Among Hispanics, by more than 4-1, 61%-14%. Among Asian Americans, by 5-1, 60%-11%. Among African Americans, by 13-1, 67%-5%.
And the yawning gender gap she has against Sanders would vanish: Clinton would carry young men and women by almost identical margins of more than 2-1.
Nearly one in four Republicans would defect to the Democrats if the GOP nominated Trump against Clinton. Just 7% of Democrats would defect to the GOP.
Among Millenials Hillary beats Trump 52% to 19%.
25% of Republican Millenials would defect to Hillary, on the flip side only 7% of Democratic Millenials would choose Trump.
"Trump would kind of make a mockery out of America," worries Cameron Lee Craig, 25, a stay-at-home mom from Amelia, Ohio, who was among those surveyed. "He's kind of a jerk."
The poll, the second in a series, is part of USA TODAY's One Nation initiative, a series of forums across the country on the most important issues of 2016. The online survey, taken by Ipsos March 3-10, polled 1,541 adults ages 18 to 34.
This strong Millenial support for Hillary confirms a February finding from Langer Research that showed no enthusiasm gap between Hillary and Bernie among polled Millenials:
Langer Research recently asked millennials how they'd feel if various candidates won the presidency. Here were the choices:
- like declaring a national holiday
- like there's a light at the end of the tunnel
- like shrugging
- like going back to bed
- like fleeing the country
And here are the results:
Needless to say, Donald Trump elicited the most extreme reaction. More interesting, I think, is that even among millennials there's really no enthusiasm gap between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. This has decidedly not been the conventional wisdom, and most poll results seem to confirm that Sanders has more support among the young. But this one, which explicitly measures enthusiasm, shows no difference. Apparently young liberals are just as excited about a Clinton presidency as a Sanders one.
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Back to this most recent USA Today/Rock the Vote poll.
Bernie leads Hillary among Millenials in this poll, predictably, but with the race the way it is (an unassailable 326 delegate lead for Hillary) the important point in this poll is that Millenials will be flocking to Hillary over Trump very strongly.
Hillary does well with Millenials against Trump, as these numbers obviously show, because Hillary has her own quite sizable Millenial support, Trump is regarded as toxic especially with Millenials, plus there are many Millenials among Bernie’s supporter group who like both Bernie and Hillary equally or somewhat equally.
Still, it would be wise to seek Bernie’s help and guidance once the nomination is officially over to bring the portion of Millenials that is fully invested in Bernie, and ONLY in Bernie, into the fold as well, with Bernie as a partner on shaping the convention platform, to improve further on the current numbers with Millenials against Trump (which are already quite good).
Among Sanders' supporters, 65% say they would turn out for Clinton in the general election, 9% would back Trump, and 20% would sit it out. The 74-year-old senator's success, including his upset victory in the Michigan primary last week, has been fueled by his appeal to younger voters, who so far have resisted Clinton's efforts to reach out to them through targeted TV ads and an increased focus on issues such as student debt.
I suppose the 9% of Bernie supporters who would back Trump are lost to us, but most of the 20% of his Millenial support who claim they would be sitting out are the ones Bernie should be able to bring over and vote for us against Trump to make the current margin with Millenials even more obviously lopsided for our side. Trump is absolutely toxic, he is dangerous, and Millenials will be a very important voting group to send that message to the world and send Trump out to pasture.
Methodology:
The poll surveyed an over-sample of members of minority groups — including 197 African Americans, 243 Hispanics and 173 Asian Americans — to allow a more reliable analysis of the findings by race and ethnicity. The overall poll results then were weighted to reflect the makeup of the nation's population. For the full sample, the credibility interval, akin to the margin of error, is plus or minus 4.6 percentage points. For the subgroups, it is +/- 7.9.