Donald Trump loves to cite polls, but he’s been noticeably quiet lately, which makes sense. Even the leftist Washington Post, which would love nothing better than Hillary Clinton as the next president of the United states, was forced to admit that Ted Cruz has a far better chance of defeating Clinton than Donald Trump.
The Post was not relying on any of its own estimates, but rather what they termed the polling gurus at Real Clear Politics. The RCP average showed Clinton with a massive 8.5 point lead over Trump. That was based on six different polls: USA Today/Suffolk showed Clinton up by a whopping 11 points, as did the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. CBS News showed Clinton up by 10; McClatchy/Marist showed her up by 9. The more right-leaning Fox News showed her up by 7; GWU/Battleground showed her up by 3.
Conversely, Clinton had only a 3-point average lead against Cruz. Even the biggest margin was less than Clinton’s average lead against Trump. The biggest margin was in the USA Today/Suffolk poll with a seven-point differential. IBD/Tipp showed Clinton up by 5; CBS News gave her a three-point lead, while NBC News/Wall Street Journal showed a bare two-point margin. Fox News showed Cruz trailing by a single percentage point, and McClatchy/Marist showed the candidates tied.
The Post pointed out that Cruz led Clinton earlier this year in a head-to head-poll, something Trump has not done. The Post concluded: “As of today, Cruz has a better chance of beating Hillary Clinton in the fall election than does Trump.”
It’s not surprising that Trump’s chances against Clinton look so dismal; earlier this month, an Associated Press-GfK poll showed him with historically unprecedented high unfavorable numbers. 70% of the electorate viewed Trump unfavorably, and even more astonishingly, almost half of GOP voters. The majority of men, women, younger voters, older voters, conservatives, moderates, liberals whites, Hispanics and blacks all viewed Trump unfavorably. The poll noted that even in the South, where Trump won primaries but never achieved a majority of voters, almost 70% of voters viewed him unfavorably.
It’s not surprising that Trump’s chances against Clinton look so dismal.
Even more tellingly, as the poll noted, “The number of Americans who view him unfavorably has risen more than 10 percentage points since mid-February.”