The growing conventional wisdom that New York Senator Hillary Clinton made big inroads and wasn’t stuck with a huge number of voters who would not vote for her no matter what will likely be put into conventional wisdom deep freeze now given a new Zogby International poll that shows she is stuck where she was months ago:
While she is winning wide support in nationwide samples among Democrats in the race for their party’s presidential nomination, half of likely voters nationwide said they would never vote for New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, a new Zogby Interactive poll shows.
The online survey of 9,718 likely voters nationwide showed that 50% said Clinton would never get their presidential vote. This is up from 46% who said they could never vote for Clinton in a Zogby International telephone survey conducted in early March. Older voters are most resistant to Clinton – 59% of those age 65 and older said they would never vote for the New York senator, but she is much more acceptable to younger voters: 42% of those age 18–29 said they would never vote for Clinton for President.
This poll can be spun — the usual way is when supporters of a candidate don’t like a given poll they start complaining about its methodology (but never complain about poll methodology when the same pollsters show their candidate in a good light) however it’s bad news for Ms. Clinton for several reasons:
1. It indicates that she is now in the same situation that her counterparts in the Republican Party are in. She can woo her voters and make headway, but she is not going to be an easy sell in a general election.
2. The increase in voters who now say they would not vote for her no matter what is not earth shattering, but Clinton has not had much leeway for error on this trend. The press -and her opponents — will jump all over it, particularly if future polls confirm the Zogby results.
3. It’s heartening for her camp that she enjoys strong support among the young, but unless this election turns out differently, elections are repeatedly confirming that it’s harder to get younger voters to the polls than older voters.
4. She and her strategists will have to find a way to move her numbers even slightly down. This is a green-light to Republican candidates and strategists to use The Hillary Issue since it now seems clear her largest support is partisan. What can she and will she do to move these numbers?
Why does Clinton continue to arouse such antipathy among a segment of voters? Is it because of her “finessed” positions? Clinton era hubris? Talk radio negative imaging?
In an era where imagery and NEWS of how voters PERCEIVE candidates is important, this news could only have been worse if something horrible about Clinton had been revealed — like if she were a bagpipe or, even worse, a harmonica player…
Not that this has been a day of sterling imagery for Hillary Clinton. The Sunday Times suggests that the Clintons’ treatment of former First Cat Socks could cost her some votes. And why not? American elections and nominations have turned on silly things before as larger issues have fallen by the wayside.
However, the Times piece also has lots of quotes and info about what the emerging message had become — that Hillary Clinton was a candidate who was broadening her support, and was perhaps even poised to make inroads among Republican women.
The Zogby poll won’t necessary negate all of that speculation and analysis — but it will neutralize it. The key will be: what will future polls show? Is Hillary Clinton someone who will find it nearly impossible to expand her support which would mean she would have to count on Democrats, independent voters (who are usually split) and the fact that Democratic registrations are going up while Republican registrations are going down?
And then there is the larger question: if Hillary Clinton starts out with a large number of people who don’t want her under any circumstances, what would that portend about a Clinton presidency?
The bottom line: the poll encourages Hillary Clinton’s Democratic and Republican foes to step up their attacks. The “inevitability” now seems stronger on getting the nomination rather than being a shoo-in during an election, no matter how unpopular the Bush administration is. Her consultants and strategists can work to overcome this obstacle and could succeed but it is indeed an obstacle that they’ll have to face. And it’ll require — to borrow a phrase someone from the opposing camp likes to use — “hard work.”
Here’s the full Zogby list:
A FEW OTHER VIEWS:
—The Heretik (who as always has a clever original graphic) writes:
Hillary seems unstoppable, except to the people who won’t vote for her. You know she is a serious contender due to the serious issues confronting her candidacy. Or not.
The upside for Hillary is there are 2 ways not to vote for someone: 1. Vote for the other guy, 2. Don’t vote at all. Her campaign must be counting on apathy. One more thing about the poll, Hillary’s people claimed this week that 25% of Republican women will vote for her. This came as a surprise to the Republican women because this poll showed 83% of Republican women would never, ever vote for her.
Now I don’t see the “winner” in 2008 getting close to fifty percent of the popular vote. Third party candidates are going to syphon off a lot of voters. Second point is a lot of people are simply not going to vote both on the left and the right; there is an incredible amount of dissatisfaction with the crop of candidates. Given that Hillary’s high negative approval doesn’t mean she can’t win but it does mean she is going to have to work at it.
Likely voters are much more predictive of electoral outcomes than general polls, or even polls of registered voters. What’s worse for the female Clinton is that those likely voters who say they will never vote for her is rising, not falling, and this in the face of her determined effort to remake herself as a warm and likable person. Yet I don’t see any way she and her husband won’t be the Democratic candidate for president in 2008.
This isn’t the first poll that says this. So, I don’t want to hear anything about Clinton being a ‘realistic’ choice for President and Obama being an ‘idealistic’ choice. If you want to talk to me about being ‘ realistic’, don’t bring up a candidate who, 13 months out, HALF THE COUNTRY TELLS YOU THEY’LL NEVER VOTE FOR.
According to Gallup, 50% of Democrats support Clinton for the nomination and according to Zogby 50% of the general population will never vote her in as president when she gets that nomination.
We have spoken about the Democratic supporters being on self destruct mode, going after their own politicians that they call Bush Dog Democrats, demanding that Harry Reid step down and calling Nancy Pelosi weak….that is all from far left liberal Democrats, not Republicans. Never has a president been elected with a 45% or more disapproval rating.
—Say Anything points to the Zogby list and notes:
That list is just plain ugly for Democrats. The top three on the list are all Democrats, including the Dem front-runner, and a GOP front-runner doesn’t even make an appearance until Giuliani in 9th place.
Almost four months of campaigning and exposure, Hillary’s numbers remain virtually the same. A June Mason-Dixon poll found that 52% would never consider voting for Hillary. It seems from an electability stand point, knowing what we know now, Democrats would do best supporting Obama or Richardson, and Republicans supporting Huckabee or maybe Thompson.
–For observations on several facets of Hillary Clinton be sure to read Peoria Pundit.
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.