In a story posted just after Midnight for today’s Washington Post, Dan Balz and and Scott Clement inform us of the results of the latest Washington Post — ABC News poll, conducted Mon-Thur, meaning not only after both conventions, but also with a weekend of news about the back and forth between the parents of Captain Khan and the Republican nominee.
Among registered voters the Democratic team led 50-42.
Among likely voter the Democrats led 51-44.
In a 4-way, the results the results were Clinton 45, Trump 37, Johnson 8, and Stein 4.
For point of comparison, the last version of this poll was taken shortly BEFORE the Republican convention, at which point the difference was 4 points, both head to head and in a 4-way.
In other words, as a result of the two conventions, Hillary Clinton has doubled her margin over Donald Trump.
But there is much more in this poll, for which the actual questions and the detailed responses, both for this poll and where available over time, can be seen here.
Other than the conventions themselves, the biggest piece of news was the back and forth between the Khans and Mr. Trump. Consider that if asked if they approved or disapproved of Mr. Trump’s handling of that, the responses were as follows:
ID |
approve |
disapprove |
overall |
13 |
74 |
Dems |
3 |
90 |
Indep |
16 |
68 |
Repubs |
22 |
61 |
Overall 56% said they STRONGLY disapproved of Trump’s handling of the issue
That may have influenced the response to the question of whether the candidates had the personality and temperament to serve effectively as president:
Clinton did by a 59-40 margin, while Trump did not, by a 33-65 margin.
When asked if the candidates had a good understanding of world affairs, the results were similar:
Clinton did 71-27
Trump did not 35-63
Clinton is consolidating Democrats: now supported by 92% of self-identified Democrats as compared to 86% before the convention, including having increased her support from Sanders supporters from 79-10 before the convention to 86-5 now.
By contrast Trump’s Republican support has increased only marginally, from, 82 to 83%, and among supporters of other primary candidates he is now at 74-17, as compared to 76-12 before the convention.
Trump is leading among independents 46-42 and among Whites 52-40 but at the same point Romney led among whites 59-39.
Meanwhile Clinont leads among non-Whites 75-18, that 57% margin being slightly less than Obama drew (61%) in 2012.
Where it really gets interesting, however, is when one dis-aggregates the figures for White votes. Quoting from the story:
The survey highlights a potentially significant fault line within the electorate that could shape the outcome: the division based on education levels. Among whites without college degrees, Trump leads Clinton by 58 percent to 33 percent, while Clinton has a 50-to-44 edge among whites with college degrees.
Trump enjoys a roughly 40-point lead among white men without college degrees but only a high single-digit lead among college-educated white men. Among white women without college degrees, he leads by low double-digits but trails by nearly 20 points among college-educated white women. At this point, he is outperforming Romney among white men without college degrees but trailing Romney’s performance with the other three groups.
There is a lot of other interesting data, on education, on income.
ADDING THIS ON GENDER Clinton leads among women 58-35, while Trump’s lead among men is only 10. That is MASSIVE.
Further, and given the fact that Trump is attacking Clinton for being a third term of Obama, Obama’s approval rating in this poll is 55-42.
While both candidates still have issues on trust and honesty, one more paragraph from the story is relevant to looking at the overall picture:
Trump’s persistent image problem is reflected in a variety of questions. More than three-quarters of registered voters say Trump does not show enough respect for people with whom he disagrees. A majority say he is biased against women and minorities. On the question of whether he goes too far in criticizing people and groups, 57 percent say he does, while 42 percent — equal to the support he receives in the ballot test — say he tells it like it is.
As for some other issues:
The candidates are trusted evenly to deal with the economy, taxes and terrorism.
Clinton leads Trump on handling immigration by 9 point, on international trade by 10 points, and has a 20 point advantage on handling race relations and international crises. Please note — the first two of those are in fact Trump’s signature issues.
So what are the takeaways?
First, and this is a no-brainer, the Democratic convention was a positive for Clinton, while at best the Republican convention was a wash for Trump, not even really increasing his support among Republicans.
Second, the strategy of the Clinton campaign in attacking Trump on being qualified and his temperament is supported by the data while Trump’s trying to attack Clinton on both that and as a continuation of the Obama administration is contradicted by the data.
Third, and one that by now should be no surprise: Trump did himself real harm in going after Mr. and Mrs. Khan.
We are now into the Olympics. In most cycles there would be a stasis, and not much movement in polling data over the next two weeks. Further, whatever edge Clinton might have gained would be seen as temporary, and that the race should narrow in the first week or two after the Olympics.
But this is, as is by now obvious, a very different cycle.
I would not at all be surprised not only to see her margin NOT narrow, but to widen. For one thing, she is advertising during the Olympics, and he is not. Her campaign apparently sees an opportunity to lock in an image of Trump as unqualified and dangerous.
I also note that Trump and Pence are campaigning together a lot, while Clinton and Kaine are largely separate, thus leveraging their personal appearance.
Once the Olympics are over, Clinton-Kaine will gain the additional surrogacy of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and probably Michelle Obama. Despite the endorsement of Paul Ryan while in Green Bay, I do not see equivalent surrogates on the other side on behalf of Trump-Pence.
Some supposed battleground states seem to be slipping into comfortable blue territory. We start with Colorado and Virginia, where the Clinton campaign is releasing most/all of its advertising reservations at least in the next few weeks. To that I think we might be able to add Wisconsin, where one additional factor is how well Russ Feingold is doing in his rematch with Ron Johnson (although this is one case where we can expect millions to be pumped in from the Koch Brothers network of donors).
So what is the basic takeaway? Despite lingering questions over the handling of the emails and the statements she has made since, Hillary Clinton has IMPROVED her relative standing against Trump since the period before the two conventions.
For point of comparison, at this point Al Gore had a 5 point lead, won the popular vote but thanks to Florida lost the election. Obama in 2012 and Bush in 2004 had similar margins after the conventions and won. In 2008 McCain with his pick of Palin actually caught up with Obama, but then got destroyed by the financial crisis, in part because of how he responded.
Looking at the entire picture, while the election is far from over, supporters of Clinton-Kaine should be quietly confident of the final outcome, barring something very much unforeseen. Even an international crisis or a terrorist attack at home might actually not hurt her, given Trump’s tendency to respond in his normal blowhard fashion.
That’s my takeaway.
What’s yours?
UPDATE there is also a Morning Consult poll out, also with an 8 point margin in a 4-way, 9 head to head, about which I write here. In that piece I mention an LA Times/USC poll, also new, that is only Clinton +1. That last seems an outlier, but I have not yet been able to see any crosstabs.
In that same diary I now also have the info from Rasmussen, which is now Clinton +4 compared to even before. But this new R is 4-way and old head to head.
In any case, clear movement in Clinton’s direction, which seems to be somewhat beyond a mere convention bounce.
We’ll see. Looking forward to state level polls this next week.
I believe we may see a very interesting one from Iowa possibly even today.