Up to a quarter of federal officials would at least consider leaving their jobs if Donald Trump were elected president, according to a poll from Government Executive magazine.
The poll, released last week, said 14 percent of respondents said they would leave the federal government, and 11 percent said “maybe.” Two-thirds of respondents said they don’t know, and 8 percent said they were unsure.
Most of the Trump angst comes from the Democratic side. When only Democrats were asked, 26 percent said they’d leave the government with Trump in the White House, and 16 percent would think about it, meaning 42 percent of all Democrats could at least consider the move.
Among Republicans, it was just 4 percent in each category.
Trump continues to lead in most state and nationwide polls, and his candidacy is known to rile both Republicans and Democrats in Washington, making him the biggest outsider in the race this year, on either side.
The survey said 28 percent of those polls consider themselves Democrats, while 26 percent identified as Republicans, and 35 percent said they were independents.
The poll said that among Democrats, 51 percent favor Hillary Clinton, but 56 percent said they’d vote for President Obama if he were allowed to run for another four years.
The federal workforce is so split that no candidate on either side has a net positive favorability rating. Sen. Bernie Sanders, for example, has a +56 percent favorability rating among Democrats, but a -60 percent rating among Republicans.
Sanders’ overall rating is therefore -4 percent, but that’s the highest any candidate received.
Donald Trump’s rating is -31 percent, but he’s not the lowest. Sen. Ted Cruz has a -32 percent rating, former Gov. Mike Huckabee’s is -39 percent, and Sen. Rand Paul has the lowest favorability rating, -48 percent.
