A new NBC News/WSJ Poll looks at the favorability ratings of the remaining presidential candidates, and the results should scare anyone who wants to see Hillary elected in the fall should she win the nomination. Hillary’s favorability among registered voters is now her lowest ever recorded by NBC News/WSJ (32% favorable, 56% unfavorable).
Clinton is 24 percentage points underwater, with a 32 percent positive rating compared to a 56 percent negative score. That's the former secretary of state's lowest rating since the poll started tracking her favorability in January 2001
Bernie Sanders is viewed significantly more favorably (+9 net favorability):
For Sanders, who is continuing his hard-fought race against his Democratic rival despite long odds to surpass Clinton in the delegate math, it's 45 percent positive, 36 percent negative.
More disturbing is that in this poll, Clinton has actually fallen behind Ted Cruz (!!!) in terms of net favorability, who scores a -23 rating nationally. Take a look at the favorability trends from the chart:
One could hope that this is a temporary blip. But unfortunately, looking at the aggregate favorability from Huffington Post, it sure doesn’t seem to be (and note that as of this writing, they have not included this poll which will skew the average even more downward:
x Embedded ContentHillary Clinton is the favorite to win the nomination. But she is viewed immensely unfavorably by voters nationwide. Although Trump is in an even worse position, we should be wary of the risks here — Clinton’s favorability is derived almost universally from democrats. She has virtually no cross-over appeal to independents or republicans. Trump is viewed unfavorably by about half of Republicans, but does better among independents.
So what’s the risk? If Hillary and Trump win their respective nominations, I believe (scary as it is) Trump has significantly more upside potential in his numbers. He will have to merely convince republicans to support him over Hillary, and he’ll have several months to do that. If he holds onto his relative strength among independents, It puts Hillary in a bind unless she can find a way to improve her image outside of her core base of democratic voters.
One way to do that is to win over the Sanders coalition of independents. And that would mean staking out strong progressive positions in the general.
On the other hand, I think a reality-based community needs to start dispensing with the notion that Hillary would be a stronger general election candidate than Bernie. If electability is the primary concern, it's time to vote Bernie Sanders if you have yet to do so. One can argue (with some truth, as a matter of fact) that Bernie’s favorability ratings will drop should he win the nomination and be subjected to Republican attacks. But they would have to drop a net of about 33 points just to match the abysmal ratings that Hillary has. If you believe that is possible, you have the right to do so, but it flies in the face of virtually all the statistical evidence at this point. It would be a purely faith-based, not reality-based, line of reasoning.