Michigan has not supported a Republican for president since 1988, but a new poll shows Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-running presidential candidate, struggling mightily.
A Fox 2 Detroit/Mitchell Research poll shows Clinton losing hypothetical match-ups to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio by nine percentage points, and to Donald Trump and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush by one point each.
Trump, Bush and Rubio all appear to have made significant inroads with Democrats in Michigan. In a hypothetical match-up against Clinton, Trump receives the support of 15 percent of Democrats surveyed while Bush and Rubio each pick up 12 percent of Democrats.
“Clinton has a real problem with Democrats where she is giving up between 12-15 percent of the vote to Republicans,” said Steve Mitchell, president of Mitchell Research and Communications. “Meanwhile, she is getting only 4 percent of the Republican vote against Rubio and Bush and 5 percent against Trump. She is also doing poorly among independents where she trails 11-20 percent with Bush and Rubio and where she is tied with Trump.”
The poll said the negative publicity surrounding Clinton has hurt her with women voters, young voters, Democrats and independents. The poll showed that “Clinton is much weaker that one would think among women voters,” as she wins the female vote by four percentage points in a hypothetical match-up against Bush and leads Rubio by five percentage points among women voters. Clinton bests Trump by 13 percentage points among the women voters surveyed.
The Republicans’ margin of victory among men is much better than Clinton’s lead among women in the hypothetical match-ups. Rubio leads Clinton by 24 percentage points among men and Trump defeats Clinton by 15 percentage points. Bush’s lead, however, is just three percentage points.
Part of the GOP’s success in the early Michigan poll is the inroads it appears to have made with younger voters. Rubio performs best among younger voters, but the poll shows “there is great volatility by age.”
“While Rubio leads by 21 percent with 18-39 year olds, Bush is only up 1 percent and Trump trails by 20 percent,” the poll found. “All three GOP candidates are behind with 60-69-year-olds. Again, Trump is behind by a bigger margin, 15 percent, while Bush trails by s6ix percent and Rubio by just 2 percent.”
Political pundits often decry early polling as having little usefulness in determining the outcome of presidential elections, and the rise of “Deez Nuts,” reportedly an Iowa high school student, in North Carolina presidential polling may have bolstered such claims. But Mitchell, who conducted the Michigan poll, believes the new results in the Great Lake State show something significant.
“One thing is very clear at this time; Hillary Clinton is a weakened candidate,” Mitchell said.
