A lot of folks in the media are getting the vapors today about a new poll which shows that Hillary's popularity is low. For instance here's a headline announcing that a “Record Number Of Americans Dislike Clinton.” The poll gives her ratings of 41% favorable and 56% unfavorable. Those are not good results, for sure, but contrary to the implication of the headline they are little changed from two months ago when the same poll gave her ratings of 42% favorable and 55% unfavorable.
But what this story and all the stories failed to mention is that Hillary’s poor favorability ratings are really quite good compared to the ratings of other politicians. In reality, the American populace is in a sour mood and gives virtually everyone and everything unfavorable ratings. In fact compared to others who are ranked, Hillary is almost at the top of the heap.
Here are the favorability ratings of some other politicians and Parties from the Huffington Post aggregate of poll results against which Hillary stacks up quite nicely:
*Trump 34% favorable, 60% unfavorable
*Paul Ryan 33% favorable, 42% unfavorable
*Mitch McConnell 16% favorable, 44% unfavorable
*Harry Reid 22% favorable, 42% unfavorable
*Nancy Pelosi 24% favorable, 48% unfavorable
*The Republican Party 34%, favorable 57% unfavorable
In fact it seems that the only people or Party doing better than Hillary are President Obama with a rating of 52% favorable, 44% unfavorable and the Democratic Party with a 45% favorable, 47% unfavorable.
So when you hear people moan about Hillary having terrible favorability ratings keep in mind that virtually everyone polled has terrible favorability ratings and hers are better than most.
There are undoubtedly many reasons the negativity of the populace including a nonstop news cycle that focuses on negativity whether in government, business, or anything else. Americans seem to express disdain for virtually all government and private institutions and the people associated with them. And in Hillary's particular case, 30 years of nonstop attacks by Fox news and others have certainly had an impact.
The good news is that regardless of her favorability ratings she is still polling very well against Trump and is consistently viewed as the most qualified to be President