Where was this poll eight months ago?
According to the latest Bloomberg National Poll, President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential rival Hillary Clinton is viewed favorably by just 39% of the electorate, a reading that’s two percentage points lower than the president’s. It’s the second-lowest score for Clinton since the poll started tracking her in September 2009.
As the Hill pointed out, a different poll put Trump's favorability at a record low, a development it blamed on the controversy surrounding Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer who had promised him damaging information about Clinton. Meaning that, even with favorability at record lows, Trump is still more popular than Clinton.
Clinton has always been a polarizing figure, but support for the former secretary of state has fallen even among those who supported her in November…perhaps because they blame her for treating the presidency as a right, not a privilege, rigging the primary against her opponent, the more-popular Bernie Sanders and – most importantly – losing to Trump.
“More than a fifth of Clinton voters say they have an unfavorable view of her. By comparison, just 8 percent of likely Clinton voters felt that way in the final Bloomberg poll before the election, and just 6 percent of Trump’s voters now say they view him unfavorably.
‘There’s growing discontent with Hillary Clinton even as she has largely stayed out of the spotlight,’ said pollster J. Ann Selzer, who oversaw the survey. ‘It’s not a pox on the Democratic house because numbers for other Democrats are good.’”
Clinton has made few speeches and, though she occasionally emerges to criticize Trump on Twitter, she has mostly kept out of sight since her defeat in November that shocked the political establishment and surprised markets. Her former supporters denied being frustrated that she lost the election (though let’s face it: they clearly are). Some said they’d wished the Dems had run Bernie instead. Even journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has expressed vociferous opposition to Trump and at times criticized Clinton, took a shot at Clinton on twitter.
Hillary Clinton has somehow become even more unpopular since the election, now slightly lower than Trump's ratings https://t.co/Dp4xHlXzAd pic.twitter.com/i2ZwBUTUvx
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 18, 2017
“In follow-up interviews with poll participants, Clinton voters denied that their negative feelings about her had anything to do with her losing the election and, therefore, helping Trump move into the White House.
Instead, their comments often reflected the ongoing angst among Democrats about how best to position themselves against Trump and Republicans in 2018 and beyond. Many said they wished Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont had won the Democratic nomination, or that they never liked Clinton and only voted for her because she was the lesser of two bad choices.”
Others complained about her inauthentic vibe, which has struggled to overcome for decades.
"‘She did not feel authentic or genuine to me,’ said Chris Leininger, 29, an insurance agent from Fountain Valley, California. ‘She was hard to like.’
Leininger, an independent voter who leans Democratic, said she found Sanders much more likable and with a better story to tell voters.
‘But I don’t blame her for Trump,’ she said. “There were a lot of factors that fed into Trump becoming a president and she was just one of them.”
The poll reaffirmed that, as was the case throughout the campaign, Clinton suffers from gender and racial gaps. Just 35 percent of men hold a favorable view of her, compared with 43 percent of women. And just 32 percent of whites like her, while 51 percent of non-whites do.
Clinton's polling numbers reflect a broader trend of tumbling popularity for Democrats, with only 38.1% of Americans viewing them favorably.
Others complained that Clinton came off as smug…
"'I felt like there was a smugness and that she was just a politician who was called a Democrat, but could have been a Republican,' said poll participant Robert Taylor, 46, a second-grade teacher from suburban Chicago who voted for Clinton, but would have preferred Sanders as the Democratic nominee. Even before the election, Taylor said he felt negatively about Clinton, but he doesn’t blame her for Trump being president. ‘I could vote for a competent leader or I could vote for a jackass,’ he said of his choices. ‘I think my negativity about her would be there whether Trump was elected or not.’”
Some former supporters said they wouldn’t have voted for Clinton if she was running against anybody but Trump.
“Ray Cowart, 75, the retired owner of a small software company from Elk Park, North Carolina, said he voted for Clinton even though he didn’t like her because “she was the better of two bad options.” Asked who he would rather have a beer with if neither one of them was president, Cowart said he’d rather stay home. ‘I wouldn’t go, even if I was thirsty,’ he said.”
While Clinton’s favorability has only declined since she left the State Department, former President Barack Obama has fared better. He’s viewed favorably by 61 percent, up 5 points since December and at the highest level since the poll began tracking him in September 2009. Former Vice President Joe Biden is just one percentage point below Obama and at his highest level since the poll started asking about him in December 2009, according to Bloomberg. The telephone poll of 1,001 American adults has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, higher among subgroups. It was conducted July 8-12 by Iowa-based Selzer & Co.