ALERT: HUGE INCREASE IN HILLARY'S NEGATIVES CHANGING PRESIDENTIAL RACE!
Jo
RACE!
By Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
April 18, 2007
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There has been a sudden and highly significant shift in the
Democratic Presidential race: Hillary Clinton is rapidly losing her
frontrunner position to Barack Obama as her negative ratings climb.
According to the Gallup poll, most Americans don't like Hillary
Clinton and the number of people who view her negatively has been
steadily increasing ever since she announced her candidacy for
President in January.
Hillary isn't wearing well. It seems as if the more people see her,
the less they like her. Now, for the first time, her low likeability
levels are costing her votes, as Democratic party voters are
abandoning her to support Barack Obama.
In February, Hillary had a 19 point lead over Obama. He is now only 5
points behind her.
The most recent Gallup Poll, taken on April 13-15th, shows the biggest
increase in negative opinions of Hillary since March of 2001, when she
was awash in the pardons and White House china theft scandals.
Gallup, which had Hillary's favorability rating up as high as 58% in
February, now shows that only 45% of American voters rate her
positively, while 52% have negative opinions of her. This is a huge
shift. In the fourteen years that Gallup has been polling Hillary,
there have only been two recorded polls with worse ratings for her -
the March, 2001 poll where her favorability was 44% and a January,
1996 survey when she scored only 43% favorable.
Capitalizing on Hillary's declining image, Barack Obama, who is rated
favorably by 52-27, has now closed to within five points of her in the
Democratic Primary trial heat. The latest numbers are:
Hillary Clinton 31%
Barack Obama 26%
John Edwards 16%
Al Gore 15%
These numbers mean serious problems for Hillary.
Particularly startling is the collapse of her favorability among key
demographic subgroups that are usually considered to be stable parts
of her political base. Her campaign is premised on a strategy of
attracting women - especially young and single women. Yet, in the last
month she has lost 7% of her favorability among all women, 10% among
women aged 18-49, and 11% among single women. She is losing her base.
The following table compares the Gallup findings for several of these
key subgroups in polling between November 9th and March 4th with those
in their most recent three surveys taken between March 23rd and April
15th. ( Gallup pools its polling in this fashion so each subgroup
will have a statistically valid number of interviews)
RATINGS OF HILLARY AMONG KEY SUBGROUPS
Source: Gallup Polls
Group Favorable Percentage
Nov 9 - Mar 4 Mar 23-Apr 15
All adults 55% 46% -9
Democrats 86 78 -8
Independents 52 43 -9
Liberals 81 73 -8
Women 61 54 -7
Women, 18-49 65 55 -10
Single Women 69 58 -11
Nonwhite 78 73 -5
The obvious question is this: What has caused this sharp decline?
There is no current Hillary or Bill Clinton scandal, for a change.
She has not been subjected to any negative media campaign and Obama
and Edwards, her two rivals, have been positively gentle in their
treatment of her.
So, what's happening?
One is driven to the conclusion that Hillary is defeating herself!
Voters are watching the former first lady in her first extended period
of national exposure since her health care debacle and don't like what
they see. She appears scripted, phony, artificial, and even boring.
Her ridiculous attack on Obama last month completely backfired. And
her southern-preacher accent in Selma was downright scary.
Undoubtedly her flip-flop-flips on the Iraq War and insistence that
she was just voting to send more U.N. inspectors are also stimulating
a sense of cynicism about her and she has no other issue to take its
place.
Her overall decline is serious, but her slippage among her key groups
- a 10 point drop among all women and an 11 point decline among single
women - must be particularly troublesome for her advisers.
Worse, from her point of view, there seems no obvious cure in sight.
Hillary is not about to clarify her position on the war as she seeks
to straddle a general election strategy of being a moderate with a
primary campaign emphasis on moving to the left. She has no national
forum for new issue positioning and the more she becomes exposed to
public view, the more her negative ratings increase.
And she can't alter her personality more than she already has. In
short, Hillary's in trouble.