For all the liabilities that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump carry into the presidential contest, each candidate’s greatest asset may be the other nominee.
A clear picture is forming in the newest national polls portraying the least popular candidates in modern times. It’s a portrait of two contenders who may not be able to win the White House on their own steam so much as through their success in securing the poor image that so many Americans already hold of the opponent.
Polling also makes it clear that a powerful core of independent voters beholden to neither party may well settle this election. This presents a particular challenge for Trump, whose words about Mexicans and Muslims have soured a majority of independent voters as well as some within his own party.
“Independents are going to rule,” says Darrell West, vice president and director of governance studies at The Brookings Institution. “These are the people in the middle. They comprise the bulk of the independent voters, and so far they don’t seem to be buying the Trump” line. “They don’t like intolerance when it’s directly expressed, and that’s one of the reasons his negatives are so high.”
Six in ten voters surveyed by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal view Trump unfavorably; 55 percent see Clinton in the same light. A month of campaigning has not altered this — indeed their negative ratings have risen a notch since the last NBC/Journal poll in May. “It does present voters with a difficult choice, because they don’t really like either of the nominees,” West says, “but Trump’s numbers are much worse than Clinton’s at this point.”
“Their own liabilities aside, it’s also important to remember that we are driven increasingly by negative partisanship,” says Norman Ornstein, political scientist and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “People are far more motivated by their unhappiness with people on the other side.”
The two candidates’ own problems are “not equivalent,” Ornstein suggests. “Trump is disliked, distrusted by more people than Clinton, and Clinton has more enthusiastic support from Democrats than Trump does from Republicans… While they’re both not doing well with independents, she has an advantage there as well.”
Trump should have a built-in advantage in one finding of the newest ABC News-Washington Post poll: A majority of voters — 56 percent — say they want a leader who will take the country in a new direction after the presidency of Barack Obama. Yet 64 percent say Trump lacks the necessary credentials, with 56 percent saying so strongly. And 61 percent see Clinton as qualified for the job.
Trump is pressing his case as the change agent. “Hillary Clinton is not a change agent, just the same old status quo!” the billionaire developer says on his Twitter account. “She is spending a fortune, I am spending very little. Close in polls!”
They’re not that close lately — Clinton holds an apparent 12 percentage-point advantage in the ABC-Post poll; she’s five points up in the NBC-Journal poll.
Fully 16 percent of voters surveyed by NBC and the Journal from June 19-23 voiced support for a third- or fourth-party candidate, Libertarian Gary Johnson or the Green Party’s Jill Stein. They share an average 13 percent of overall support in RealClearPolitics’ tracking of four-way match-ups with Clinton and Trump.
This is another measure of discontent with the major party candidates, experts agree. “Third-party candidates often do well in June but they rarely do well in November,” West says. “It’s easy to cast a protest vote at this stage, but the third-party numbers always drop as we get closer to the election.”
Two in three Americans say they are “anxious” about the idea of Trump as president and say his comments about women, minorities and Muslims show an unfair bias, the ABC-Post poll from June 20-23 found.
Clinton carries her own baggage as well, and Trump is attempting to capitalize.
Most voters — 56 percent in the ABC-Post poll — say they disapprove of Clinton’s handling of questions about her use of a private email server during her time as Secretary of State. The FBI is investigating the emails, and this was one of the revelations of a congressional investigation of events surrounding the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012. A House special committee’s final report on Benghazi this week offered little new ammunition for Trump, yet the email controversy persists like an albatross.
Still, the heavier burden for Trump may be his own words.
Among voters who consider themselves independent — the ones who can swing a close election in a pivotal state — just 40 percent favor Trump’s ideas of building a wall against Mexico or barring immigration by Muslims. This comes from a recent survey conducted by Brookings and the Public Religion Research Institute.
Lately, Trump has attempted to modify his “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” to focus instead on “terrorist” countries.
But “it’s going to be hard for him to attract new supporters when no one really understands what his new stance is,” West says, “and at the same time his supporters will be aggravated because they actually liked the Muslim ban.”
And Trump’s bigger problem may run deeper.
“He is carrying much heavier baggage because so many people think he’s unqualified for the presidency,’’ West says. “That’s a tough negative to overcome.”
For Trump, attempting to make Clinton’s liabilities his own assets involves reinforcement of any mistrust voters hold about her integrity. For Clinton, it’s a question of reaffirming doubts voters hold about Trump’s very ability to lead. This means voters may well come to dislike both even more before the contest ends.
First come the summer conventions, though.
“Conventions offer an opportunity to reintroduce yourself,” says John McGlennon, professor of government at The College of William and Mary. “During Clinton’s time in the State Department, she had high approval ratings. It does suggest there is some possibility for growth. Trump, too, has an opportunity to reintroduce himself.”
“There is a possibility that some voters will like these people more,’’ McGlennon says. “Yet I don’t think that, in this election, we’ll get back to a place where people will express approval for any candidates across party lines.’’
