We recently ran the results of a national MSNBC/Telemundo/Marist poll which found former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton running ahead of all GOP likely candidates for President. Now, a new Suffolk University poll finds her tied — and also finds that a big chunk of Donald Trump’s supporters would vote for him as an independent if he bolted the Republican Party. Here’s the press release:
Poll: GOP Leaders Running Neck-and-Neck with ClintonTwo-Thirds of Trump Primary Voters Would Vote for Him as an Independent
Suffolk University/USA TODAY Survey Shows Cruz, Rubio as viable GOP Alternatives
BOSTON—A Suffolk University/USA TODAY national poll of likely voters shows former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and businessman Donald Trump solidly ahead in their respective nomination fights eight weeks before the Iowa caucuses. However, Democrat Clinton’s onetime lead in one-to-one matchups against GOP candidates has eroded, and a small polling subsample showed that two-thirds of Trump voters would continue to support him as an independent candidate if he were to leave the Republican Party.
Despite a commanding lead over her Democratic rivals—Clinton (56 percent), Sanders (29 percent) and Martin O’Malley (4 percent), with 11 percent undecided—the race gets much tighter for Clinton in potential head-to-head general election matchups with the four leading Republican candidates, according to the poll. Each of these matchups is a statistical dead heat given the poll’s margin of error:
–Marco Rubio (48 percent) tops Clinton (45 percent)
–Clinton (48 percent)—Trump (44 percent)
–Clinton (46 percent)—Ben Carson (45 percent)
–Clinton (47 percent)—Ted Cruz (45 percent)The gap between the Democratic front-runner and Republican candidates has closed since July, when a Suffolk University-USA Today poll showed Clinton leading Trump by 17 points in a one-to-one matchup, 51 percent to 34 percent. At that time, Bush was her closest rival. He trailed the former New York senator 46 percent to 42 percent, with 13 percent undecided.
Meanwhile, Trump led with 27 percent among likely Republican primary/caucus voters, followed by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) at 17 percent; Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) at 16 percent; retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, 10 percent; former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, 4 percent; and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie tied at 2 percent. All other candidates together totaled 3 percent, and 17 percent were undecided.
“The Republican side is beginning to shake out, at least at the national level,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston. “Both Senators Cruz and Rubio are vying hard to be the Republican alternative to Trump, but there are seventeen percent undecided still, which keeps the door open for one of the single-digit candidates to make a splash in Iowa or New Hampshire and shake the race up further.”
Cruz was the top “second choice” (22 percent) of all the candidates, followed by Rubio (15 percent), with Carson and Trump tied at 13 percent. The second-choice ballot test is a good indicator of whom Republican voters may switch to as minor candidates drop out.
Rubio tops in favorabilityRubio, meanwhile, was the only major candidate from either political party who had a net positive (+5) favorability rating, with a 41 percent favorable to 36 percent unfavorable rating. The next closest in terms of popularity were President Barack Obama (-1), Ben Carson (-3) and Bernie Sanders (-3). Of the remaining major candidates, Cruz’s net favorability was (-9), Hillary Clinton’s (-15), and Donald Trump’s (-30), an indication of a 30 percent favorable and 60 percent unfavorable rating.
Loyalists would stick with Trump as an independent
Despite Trump’s weak favorability numbers among general election voters, his following within the Republican Party is fiercely loyal. When Trump voters were asked if they would still vote for him as an independent candidate and not as a Republican, 68 percent said they would vote for him, while 18 percent would not, and 11 percent were undecided. These statistics are based on a subset of fewer than 100 voters total and thus carry a much larger margin of error than the general poll.
“Despite having the highest unfavorable among all voters, Trump is getting the maximum return on his campaign investment: He has spent the least amount of money yielding huge returns in the GOP primary, and his loyal following would control the outcome of the general election if he were to run as an independent,” said Paleologos.
Vox’s Matthew Yglesia argues that Trumpism would be the “perfect ideology” for a third party. Here’s part of what he writes:
Trump himself is probably a bit too much of an outlandish character to be a successful third-party candidate, but at this point he’s shown enough staying power that we should assume he’d have some real traction.
But beyond Trump himsef, Trumpism is what a winning third party would have to sound like to get traction in America — a grab bag of issue positions that appeal to a substantial minority of the electorate but that neither party wants to wholeheartedly embrace because the ideas are too toxic in the elite circles that fund campaigns.
Like Unity ’08, but the opposite.
When big shots in the worlds of politics, business, and media muse about alternatives to partisan politics, they tend to come up with an agenda cherry-picked from the establishment wings of both parties — an agenda that adds up to a globalization-oriented, business-friendly platform watered down with light dollops of concern for the indigent, the global poor, and the environment.
The politics of former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg — not coincidently, a man who was simultaneously a titan of business, politics, and the media — are an excellent template. He was liberalish on social issues but deferential to the police and armed forces; open to tax hikes to reduce the deficit and to government spending on infrastructure and basic research but fundamentally skeptical of the welfare state; friendly to the aims of environmental groups but hostile in practice to noisy green activists; disdainful of labor unions (especially in the public sector) but admiring of immigrants.
These were also the politics of the Simpson-Bowles Commission and its fabled “grand bargain” on long-term deficit reduction. Before that, they were the politics of No Labels and Unity ’08, two brainchildren of graybeard politicians and semi-high-minded political consultants who wanted to heal partisan wounds by having elites join hands across the aisle.
Trumpism is like the opposite of that. And with good reason. It consists of ideas that are endorsed by substantial blocs of the electorate but that lack representation in high-level US politics.
Bloombergism is precisely backward. It makes for fun elite discussion because it is popular among elites. But precisely because it is so popular among elites, both parties’ agendas already bear its fingerprints, and the space for it to power a third party is limited.
Read his post in its entirety.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.