While Democratic politicians and groups continue to use Hillary Clinton as a matinee draw for fundraisers and campaign events, a new Gallup poll shows Clinton remains at record lows in the polls. Indeed, she remains more unpopular than Donald Trump at 36%. Trump has a 41% popularity. It is a striking disconnect. Many of us were critical when the Democratic establishment (and virtually every Democratic member of Congress) all but guaranteed the nomination of Clinton despite every poll showing her to be unpopular and the voters seeking an anti-establishment choice. Now, even after two years of book tours and speeches, Clinton is still distinctly unpopular but Democratic groups continue to make her the face of the Democratic campaign for the midterms. It shows the hold of the Clintons on some in the Democratic ranks even though she is likely to continue to alienate many who are looking for an alternative this election.
Gallup notes that, according to past polling and trends, Clinton should become more not less popular at this point.
We have previously tracked the polling showing that Clinton would still lose to Trump in prior polls.
I admit that I have never understood the hold of the Clintons who have long been divisive and damaging figures for the party from their various scandals in Arkansas and Washington to the impeachment to the 2016 election. Nevertheless, they were incredibly nimble in placing loyalists into positions of power and, in one of the most controversial moves, effectively taking over the finances of the Democratic party before the last nomination. Even with years of worsening polls showing that Hillary Clinton remains politically radioactive for many voters and unpopular with most. Nevertheless, with both houses at stake, the Democrats are again bringing out Clinton in videos and campaign speeches.
Trump and his people must be delighted by the return of Clinton given these and past polling numbers. At the same time, Trump does not appear in the free fall that many suggest. Indeed, he is far more popular than figures like French President Emmanuel Macron, who is often celebrated as a critic.
None of this means that the Democrats are unlikely to take the House and possibly the Senate. However, they again seem willing to risk the margin with the Clintons and ignoring the clear sentiment of the voters.
Many voters are clearly willing to vote against the Republicans in opposition to Trump, but the Democrats again seem to want to replay the same message with Clinton and the Democratic establishment. The voters are not leaving the GOP because they like the Democratic establishment. To the contrary they remain as anti-establishment as they were in 2016. Those voters could well stay home if the chose is again between Trump and the Clintons.
But Professor T! They have no one else. Not even Jeff Flake measures up. What they do have is some seven or so splintered factions each fighting for control and in doing so exposing the reasons they shouldn’t exist.
The only goal is an attempt to remain as ‘a’ party not realizing they have already become something else.
If the GOP disappeared which we are working on and became the Constitutional Republic Party for those who like that system (and these days necessary to have seats established in congress) while others became Constitutional Centrist Coalition (independents) they would grow in number even after ejecting the RINOs.
The left has no such viable rally point. It’s Latino, Black, Asian etc. first foilowed incidentally by Democrat meaning some form or the other of socialism
Witht he Constitutional Republic movement ir’s that first and all other differences incidental to that status first .
So why Hillary. To keep themselves together instead of becoming openly foreign ideologists first and the rest incidental to that theyl go through a phase of rally round the loser until something better comes along.
Advantage to the Constitutionalists as the left can’t even take the oath of office without violating it
Jonathan Turley is unlikely to produce a thread about getting children up in the middle of the night to go live in tents in the desert.
What happened to “life, liberty and the persuit of happiness”?
Our Founders could spell.
goodbeavis – we know that former electrical engineers cannot speel. Their edumukation is very focused.
The typo in the headline is quite amusing.
Now that is funny. 🙂
I’m not reading the article until he fixes this. It’s too much of a distraction.
Typo fixed so we don’t have to concern ourselves with her remains.
But 5% difference. Looks like the margin of error to me. If I were writing this I would say that they are both about equal in unpopularity and then go on to lament the broken political system.
I’m sure it’s the Russian’s fault.
mespo is i am and then there is someone who has about three or four sockpuppets who is both a nurse and a lawyer. don’t forget himherit. there are a couple more at least, I am sure. many lawyers are afraid to have an opinion since we can lose our licenses over it.
She used to use one handle and has lately been using two or three. The smart money says she is neither a nurse nor a lawyer. Then there is the posing public defender who is almost certainly an adolescent. There is an actual lawyer who posts under his own name, but he hasn’t been participating lately.
Why do you care about this topic? Perhaps the effort is one of trying to establish that we’re better off that Trump is the President even with a minority of the popular vote.
Because it’s relevant to the current political climate?
The only reason why Hillary is in the news is bc she has a husband who does not want her. A woman who has an “open relationship” in her marriage, and a lesbian woman at that, experiences more misery and sense of worthlessness that can only be countered by the amount of misery she causes others 😉
“Hillary Clinton’s Remains More Unpopular Than Trump” [sic]. A little typo there that made me chuckle. She seems healthy, btw. Also, props to Kanye.
She’s like the Bad Penny that keeps showing up. I would bet the only reason she is still out there is to groom Chelsea. Politics have made the Clinton’s wealthy it’s a great business for those who don’t want to work. I can see Chelsea running for office in a couple years in some weak Dem state just like mom did.
Chelsea should have continued working at McKinsey or gone to work in the public health field and stayed clear of her parents’ grift. Also, there’s nothing wrong with an apartment in Hoboken and getting married in a small chapel on a January afternoon with some friends present (and family, if needs be). Her husband could have continued working for Goldman, Sachs. The 7- and 8- digit sums her parents’ dumped on them were just de trop.
In this polarized political environment 50% is about the ceiling for a politician’s popularity, and all of a sudden Trump’s 42% to 47% (depending on the poll) does not look too bad in comparison to HRC does it?
This is only relevant to the Democratic Party who should learn from it but will not.
The question you have about the Democratic Party is as follows: who have they had of quality at the apex and center and who do they have coming on line who might have a salutary effect on the intramural culture of the party (in Washington – state capitals are a different matter). Looking back:
1. [perhaps] Jimmy Carter, Michael Dukakis, Paul Simon, the younger Al Gore, Bob Kerrey, Paul Tsongas, Jerry Brown, Bill Bradley, Wesley Clark, Bernie, George Mitchell, Thomas Foley (Tip O’Neill and Walter Mondale were too enmeshed in the party’s patron-client mentality and Gary Hart had personal issues). Simon, Tsongas, O’Neill, and Foley are deceased. None of the others among the foregoing are under 70.
2. Nobody. The congressional leadership is made up of ciphers like Patty Murray and scumbgags like Charles Schumer. All those being touted as presidential timber fall into two categories: over-the-hill and plain awful.
Dont under rate Tip O Neill, compared to the mongrel curs of today he was a pedigreed best in show dog.
John Edwards was not so bad either but scandal with women dragged him down too. Nothing will come from NC Dems anymore that is worth a bucket of warm spit,
Puritanism’s evil great-great-grand-daughter is today’s harridan feminism and it haunts us as much as it did when Hawthorne wrote the Scarlet Letter.
“None of this means that the Democrats are not likely to take the House and possibly the Senate.”
*********************
Trump rounds up a crowd of 10,000 each in Tennessee, Missouri and West Virginia on school nights and Hillary can’t make a foursome for a bridge game with two weeks to try. I don’t see any blue waves.
this is exactly why I knew Trump would win, from the Convention on. These ongoing triumphs, his filling sports arenas with enthusiastic fans (and tens of thousands outside, because the arena is full) tell the tale. It hasn’t changed in more than two years.
I was once a Hillary supporter, and I was so in full knowledge of her cronyism, petty crimes, and despicable nature because that kind of stuff does not stop one from being a good leader. See what’s his name, Michael Velli the old Italian writer. I am not at all sure that saints and Sunday School teachers make good leaders. People with shady natures can still make competent politicians. It is just a fact of life.
She lost me over the email stuff, because that was just a bridge too far, and was bluntly speaking, STUPID with a capital S. Plus, a truly competent person, Donald Trump, entered the fray. He also has real smarts, and can see past all the bullsh*t, to the true nature of things.
I am still agog how dimwits like Isaac Baconbitz can call him a buffoon with a straight face. I think it is because they identify so strongly with their party and their politics that they think anybody who disagrees with them is stupid. Or a racist. Or a homophobe. Or whatever. When Trump calls out the Democrats as stupid or mendacious, the Isaacs of the world take it as a personal insult. Therefore, they can not provide intelligent analysis and insight, but just blubber and spray slobber everywhere.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
We have two Senate candidates just throwing mud as each other. Fun times in AZ. Still, it is raining and the lakes should get some water, which we need.
Lucky about the rain. I’m told the miracle from the sky might grace us with her presence tomorrow.
Karen S – we really need the water here. My sister in Carlsbad said they should be getting it today. So, you should be next. Utah is after us. 😉
Paul C……….hope you and your wife didn’t have flooding problems.
Cindy Bragg – thank you for your thoughts. It was Oct. 2 and we have already had the 2nd wettest Oct in history. 🙂 However, Gilbert is on the far edge of the edge of the storm. Central Phoenix and west Phoenx got hit hard. More rain expected the next two days, Still a chance to be number one. 🙂
Paul C…..what a record!
Don’t know if you saw my comment to you (somewhere! lol) about visiting Marjle’s bar years ago when I was a Sun’s fan……Keeping up with comments here is like herding cats …..I never can find them again!
Stay safe
Cindy Bragg – what until you are a moving target. It is a lot more fun. 😉 I saw the comment about Dan, I think he is coaching for Grand Canyon University or something now. Doing a great job.
Hillary is a loser. She lost when she abandoned her platform based on the issues and tried to play Trump’s game. She looked stupid and no one can play Trump’s game. No one can pull off lying, facial expressions, buffoonery, blaming, pontificating, and all the other sideshow routines like Trump. Clinton should simply shut the FU and let it die. If she had stuck with the basics and not gotten emotional-case in point the labeling of Trump supporters as deplorables-she probably would have one. Against a backdrop of balanced issue based platforms Trump would have been contrasted as what he is, a buffoon and a liar. America is more than ready for a candidate based on substance or steak. We have had it with nothing but sizzle. How long will Americans allow themselves to be sold this nonsense?
as long as Canadians are telling us what to do, we will eat the steaks of our own selection, how about that? is that long enough for you?
time for a tariff on molson moosehead and labatts. fine beers but Canuckistan needs a little spanking to mind its own business!
As an Canadian/American I claim the privilege of being both objective and subjective. Most Canadians know more about the US than the average American, Now if you pull your head out from where the sun don’t shine, you might get to enjoy what the world has to offer, not just what Hicksville USA has to offer.
oh i live in flyover USA alright it’s my heartland and native soil. some of my ancestors took it through conquest and some watered its soil with their blood. I am pleased to live within a short distance of my birthplace
but i have traveled and done many things. you don’t need to know what and where, but i have had the stinky cheeses of the white man, the stinky beans of the yellow man, and the rotten cabbages of both. it doesn’t matter too much at the end of the day whether you make your vodka from potatoes or wheat or sorghum, it’s still just strong clear liquor at the end of the day. i could go on, but diversity is your greatest strength, not mine.
What I will say of my trips to Canada: great outdoors, friendly people, and fun strip shows. Not much else worth mentioning.
Mr Kurtz – what, what, what??? You say Canada has strip shows? I would have gone when I was in college. 😉 It would have been more fun than Minneapolis for spring break.
Hillary broke myriad laws. Comey outlined most of her crimes, and then turned politician claiming that no prosecutor would have tried her. They have and they do. They offered immunity to 5 people on her staff, allowed 2 of them to sit with her during her short interview, and then the FBI itself smashed 2 of their laptops. Then they allowed the rest of her staff to smash their Blackberries and laptops in the most egregious open example of destroying evidence in history.
I can outline each of the crimes she committed if you want.
Hillary Clinton should be in prison.
In a co-ed prison with Trump.
What will be a bit interesting is after the Clintons pass this earth will they be worshipped as they are by many today. Stripped of their power then to provide baubles and table scraps for the masses they more likely will just fade away.
It is not who they are that derives their present support, it is either the fact that “they are not (insert opponent’s name)” or that they are perceived as being a vehicle to provide political change for those wanting this at any cost. Without those two attributes, they have nothing substantively good to offer.
Sure they will Darren – there are still plenty of folks who forget what Bill did while in office and ignore HRC’s war mongering and grift. Look at all the Limosine Liberals who still worship Obama! More and more folks are waking up and will stay home during the midterms. And many who voted for Trump will do the same IMO. Woke people are tired of voting against someone rather than for a candidate. The system is broken.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-01/critical-difference-between-tim-canova-and-alexandria-ocasio-cortez
A critic of Mrs. Clinton offered that she was the most corrupt individual nominated by a major party since the era of Aaron Burr.
Consider the Kennedys. FWER, John Kennedy is regarded by the mass public as the finest of our most recent presidents. However, the intelligentsia has lost interest in the family, AFAICT. (My wager would be that most biographies and period histories which feature the Kennedys and take a critical stance have been written by the red-haze types on American history faculties; there are almost no Republicans teaching American history anymore).
If you spin the roulette wheel, one might wager that Bilge Clinton may receive agreeable retrospective approval ratings, but there’ll be almost no visceral affection for the man outside the black population and the Nina Burleighs of this world. His wife’s political career has been derived from branding, a mastery of the process of running fundraising and publicity campaigns, establisihment preferences, and a lickspittle media. She’s like any other Democratic pol, just meaner and uglier and less scrupulous. The academy will advocate for them, but only as adversaries of those the American history faculty despises.
Hillary is not being blamed by powerful men for daring to run, she is being blamed by Democrats for losing to Trump.
I didn’t say “blamed”. What I said was “powerful men won’t forgive her for running” but never mind words don’t mean anything any more. Immpuzzled if she’s such a loser why is Trump always talking about her and people pulling her popularity. Why does it matter? I wasn’t a Hillary supporter but this fixation on Hillary is fascinating.
“powerful men won’t forgive her for running”
They don’t exist outside your imagination, which is why they remain unnamed.
Just
Making
Stuff
Up
again.
Holmes, how can we miss her if she won’t go away?
Aaron Burr, he had the distinction and honor of having ended the patron saint of American bankers, Hamilton, in a fair contest of arms. Don’t knock him too much either, there have been a lot worse.
Bill Clinton will be appreciated by white men for making a good life for himself from a bad position. He has a lot of faults, but, I would prefer him 100 times over to Hillary as a politician.
The mischief Hillary presided over in the Middle east as Sec of State was horrendous….. but remember Bill Clinton had his own foolish patronage of Muslim extremism too. yes the bombing of Serbia, a counterproductive finger on the scales of a civil war not any of our concern, in which the US favored the Muslim extremist militia the UCK.
Setting up new covert pilelines of mischief with Muslims onto the Continent of Europe which fester like tendrils of cancer to this day.
On the topic of the Kennedys, I am plowing through a great biography of Joseph P. Kennedy “The Patriarch”. Not the same man as he’s been portrayed throughout my life. And in reading his policy positions and speeches, he sounds like Trump’s long-lost twin!
Clinton will be remembered more fondly than his wife. He already is.
Many times he made me laugh. She just makes me feel ill.
“Popularity” does not necessarily correlate to competence, integrity, morality or other positive attributes we desire in our leaders. Polls, surveys, or other measures of voter attitudes should be cautiously wieghed in evaluating persons for/in office.
I didn’t know that Trump was running against Hillary in the midterms. Unfortunately for the country the men in power will never forgive her for daring to run for the office as president. As a result, the attacks never stop. It would be really beneficial for the country if our federal and state legislaturers and executives would focus on making life better for living human beings that spending their time bashing Hillary and creating and passing more tax cuts for corporations and billionaires.
Unfortunately for the country the men in power will never forgive her for daring to run for the office as president.
If fantasy helps you get through the day, fine. Could you take it somewhere else? It’s a nuisance.
MBITRW, you have to scrounge to locate a component of the establishment that didn’t favor her over all comers. Extractive industries, perhaps, and those components of the legal profession who earn their fees from representing such companies. (OTOH, Local establishments – your community bankers and car dealers and one-site manufacturers – are commonly Republican). It’s possible there was a contingent of Bernie Bros in higher education, though if my family is any guide, favoring Bernie was inversely associated with age and income.
Spot on – it wasn’t her gender. I think Tulsi Gabbard would do well if she ran but the Establishment would unite to destroy her.
Bernie had an embarrassing youth, but he’d prospered in local politics. He was a seminal figure in Burlington politics and in the political history of the last several decades, there’s Before Bernie and After Bernie. (Much as there’s Before Rudy and After Rudy in NYC). He knows something of executive responsibilities from having held them, and, unlike HRC, didn’t make a mess of it. Gabbard just doesn’t have the background.
In terms of quality, Bernie was head-and-shoulders above HRC. The Democrats had an opportunity to squeeze the pus out, and they blew it. Now they’ve gone batsh!t crazy.
Do you want to know what is a nuisance, my friend, the way this thread has fallen to political rather than legal discussion. I’d much prefer a good legal discussion but so be it.
You don’t like what I say so, I should shut up and go away. No I don’t think I’ll do that.
The original post had nothing to do with legal questions. Turley seldom uses this blog for that sort of question and only two of the regulars who post here are lawyers.