Hillary Clinton’s national poll numbers have been falling for months, and pundits are quick to blame her ongoing email scandal. So are Republican politicians. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy lost his chance to become majority leader by connecting the email scandal and the Benghazi committee to Clinton’s dropping numbers, fueling even more talk that emails are a major cause of Clinton’s decline.
But the evidence points to a different culprit: The rise of Bernie Sanders.
Events at the first Democratic presidential primary debate on Tuesday highlighted just how unimportant the email scandal is for Democrats.
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“The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails,” Sanders said to raucous applause from the Democratic audience. “Enough of the emails. Let’s talk about the real issues facing America.” That comment earned more noisy applause from the audience.
It was a revealing moment in the Democratic primary campaign. Some pundits suggest Hillary’s scandals, and especially the scandal she created by using a private email server while secretary of state, are her biggest liability as a candidate. Instead, Sanders made clear that he would not use it to score political points.
And why should he? Most Democrats don’t care about Clinton’s emails. Fewer than 30 percent of Democrats said the email matter will be very or somewhat important in deciding their vote, according to a CBS poll conducted last week. Compare that to almost 50 percent of independents and 75 percent of Republicans who said the same thing.
Polling for Democratic Candidates InsideGov
Looking at the RealClearPolitics Democratic presidential nomination polling average, Clinton’s first drop began in early June, around the time Sanders started to draw thousands to his rallies. Clinton’s numbers would recover briefly before falling from 63 percent in mid-July to 43 percent today.
From the beginning of June until now, Sanders has risen from 9 percent to 25 percent nationwide. Joe Biden’s numbers took a smaller piece of Clinton’s lead, rising from 10 percent to 17 percent.
From mid-June to early September, however, Clinton’s favorability with Democrats was steady, with three out of four Democrats holding a favorable opinion of her. Less than half of Democrats held a favorable view of Bernie Sanders, while the other declared candidates received no more than 15 percent favorable opinions.
The combination of Clinton’s high and steady favorability ratings and her declining national poll numbers implies that Democrats still like Clinton but are willing to consider alternatives.
If Democrats cared about the email scandal, they might be expected to shift their support to someone who is like Clinton but without the baggage of scandals, such as Martin O’Malley.
Instead, Democrats are shifting to Bernie Sanders, who contrasts with Clinton ideologically. Clinton’s version of liberalism isn’t extreme enough for these voters. They want to support Sanders, the self-styled democratic socialist, for his far-left ideas.
This is not to say the scandals aren’t affecting Clinton’s overall poll numbers. Only 41 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Clinton, as of September. The last time those numbers were so low, Clinton had yet to become first lady.
“As Clinton continues to field inquiries from the media and government into her email use as secretary of state, her favorable rating among national adults has fallen to near-record lows,” Gallup analsysts wrote. “But she remains generally liked among Democrats themselves, so it is still an open question as to whether media reports of her email situation will have an effect on her ability to obtain the Democratic presidential nomination.”
The loud applause to Sanders’ comments last night about Hillary’s email scandal confirmed what I have long suspected: Most Democrats don’t think Clinton’s emails are an important issue. For many of these Democrats, it seems, Hillary’s problem is that she’s not liberal enough.
Jason Russell is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
