As many have noticed, Donald Trump has been running significantly more strongly against Hillary Clinton in May polling than he was during March and April. From March 9 to May 10 Clinton led Trump by at least six points and by as many as 11 in the RealClearPolitics.com average of recent polls. Now that lead is down to 46 to 43 percent, and just 44 to 43 percent if you exclude the CNN/ORC poll which was conducted before the May 3 Indiana primary, where Trump’s victory resulted in the withdrawal of his two remaining primary rivals, Ted Cruz and John Kasich.
One might argue that this is still not a particularly strong result for Trump. He is universally known, yet just 43 percent say they would vote for him. That’s less than the 46 percent which is the lowest percentage for any major party candidate in the last 25 years (if in the 1990s results you allocate Perot votes to those voters’ second choice candidate). Trump has been a highly visible and universally known presidential candidate for 11 months, but has never exceeded 44 percent in the RCP average.
All true, but there’s something else notable here: the very weak showing of Hillary Clinton. If he has been a candidate for 11 months, she has been universally known as candidate, two-for-the-price-of-one-spouse-of-candidate, first lady and U.S. senator for 24 years. She is known to 100 percent of voters and an average of 54 percent won’t say they’re for her, not even against a candidate with very substantial negatives of his own.
This is all the more extraordinary because the past two months has seen a small but quite possibly politically significant rise in the job approval of Barack Obama, from the 46 percent from which it varied little from January 2015 through January 2016 to 49 percent from March 2016 until now. Job approval of 46 percent is not a huge problem for a candidate of the incumbent party, but 49 percent is a lot more helpful.
You would expect that the numbers for the putative Democratic candidate for president would rise in tandem with a rise in the numbers for the Democratic president — and one for which that candidate served in a top position for four years. You would expect that — but it’s not happening. To me, that’s an indicator of how far Hillary Clinton is from an ideal nominee for the Democratic party. Further evidence are the polls showing Bernie Sanders running better against Donald Trump and (until May 3) other Republicans; no one I know thinks Sanders could do so well in real life, but the results show the Democratic potential vote is greater than Clinton is currently getting. Imagine that Clinton hadn’t run: how would Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren or Sherrod Brown be running against Donald Trump now? Ahead by just two or three points?
Donald Trump benefited in the Republican race from the contrast with the dynastic candidate Jeb Bush, who was leading the polls when Trump announced June 16, 2015. Is he benefiting now in the general election race from the contrast with the dynastic candidate Hillary Clinton, who was leading him by wide margins in March and April? Looks kinda like it.
