By Robert Laurie ——Bio and Archives--April 20, 2018
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Right before the election, the share of people who viewed Hillary Clinton unfavorably was 10 points larger than those with a favorable view of her, according to the Wall Street Journal/NBC poll — a bigger gap than any other recent losing presidential candidate. Our latest poll is a reminder of just how unusual a figure Mrs. Clinton is in terms of her unpopularity. Historical WSJ/NBC polling shows that recent losing presidential candidates — Mitt Romney, John McCain, John Kerry and Al Gore — experienced post-election declines in positive sentiment. But Mrs. Clinton’s dropoff is a bit steeper–her positive rating is at a new low of 27%, compared with 52% who have a negative opinion. That spread of 25 percentage points is greater than President Trump’s, who is under water by 18 points.
Her negative numbers make her something of a natural target for Republicans who want to associate their opponents with her as the party heads into a potentially difficult midterm election this fall. In doing so, they have managed to put some vulnerable Democrats in states Mr. Trump easily won, like Sens. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Claire McCaskill of Missouri, on the defensive. That was driven home last month when Democrats took distance from comments Mrs. Clinton, attending a conference in India, made about middle-American Trump voters.Certainly, Hillary has done herself no favors with her never-ending blame tour. Since her election night meltdown, she’s blamed her loss on virtually every imaginable scapegoat, refused to accept that the failure of her life’s work was her own fault, and still can’t seem to wrap her head around the fact that voters rejected her. People were sick of her excuses in 2016, and they’re even more sick of them now. However, I’d argue that’s only half the story. The bigger issue for Mrs. Clinton is that her career, up to and including the last election, has been one mired in near constant corruption. 2016 gave her one last shot at convincing the nation she wasn’t as completely horrible as everyone believed her to be. Had she played things straight during her own party’s primaries, she might even have made it happen. Unfortunately, she decided to cheat. I’d wager her decision to collude with the DNC brass and shaft her own party’s base – even more than the usual “loser” syndrome mentioned above – is responsible for her cratering numbers. She lost the opposition years ago. Now, she’s lost the people who were supposedly “with” her.
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