A new poll from Quinnipiac University finds Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton still leading their respective parties for the nomination. While Clinton continues to have a strong lead, though, she fares worse in hypothetical general election match-ups than Vice President Joe Biden. Worse, however, Clinton has the lowest rating for being “honest and trustworthy” of any Presidential candidate.
Among all voters, less than a third think Hillary Clinton is honest and trustworthy. No candidate in either party scores lower on this critical measure than Clinton. Among Independents, 70 percent believe Clinton is not honest. Her ratings on honesty are even terrible among women.
A strong majority of women, 56 percent, do not think Clinton is honest. White women have a particularly harsh assessment of Clinton’s truthfulness. By a 2-1 margin, they view her as dishonest.
As a result, Clinton’s personable favorability ratings are among the lowest of all candidates. Only Donald Trump has lower personal ratings among all voters than Hillary. Just 41 percent of voters have a positive opinion of Clinton, while 55 percent have a negative view.
If, as many pundits allege, Trump is too divisive a figure to win a general election, then Hillary Clinton isn’t far behind the real estate mogul as a flawed candidate for the Presidential election next Fall.
In fact, Trump is the only Republican candidate Hillary Clinton edges in a hypothetical general election match-up. Even then, she only bests Trump by 2 points, narrowly winning Independents and white women.
Clinton is on the losing end against every other Republican tested, with her worst showing a 7-point loss against retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson. She loses Independents and white women against all other GOP candidates.
Vice President Joe Biden, however, beats all potential GOP rivals, with the exception of Ben Carson, with whom he ties. Biden runs far better with Independents than Clinton. Biden even polls better with all female voters than Hillary.
That one statistic should providing a sobering wake-up call for Democrats. Joe Biden does better with female voters in the general election than Hillary Clinton, who has based much of her campaign on its historic precedent. Female voters are more likely to support the Democrat male nominee than the Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Such are the wages of Hillary Clinton’s sin of failing to be truthful and forthcoming about the controversies surrounding her use of a private email system while she was Secretary of State. By many measures, that potential scandal is still in its infancy, with an ongoing FBI investigation into possible violations of federal law.
Enormous damage, however, has already been done to Hillary Clinton’s dreams of moving back into the White House. When almost two-thirds of voters view her has dishonest, that damage is likely to be existential.