Posted on 03/09/2016 10:12:46 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Last night, Donald Trump called on Republicans to unite behind him and declared that only he could defeat Hillary Clinton. A new NBC/WSJ poll out this morning disputes that claim — although the general election is still a long way off. Trump loses to both Hillary and Bernie Sanders by double-digit margins in this sample of 1200 registered voters, but Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz look much more competitive:
Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders would handily defeat Donald Trump in a general election match-up, while a clash between Clinton and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz or Florida Sen. Marco Rubio would be a toss-up, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
The poll shows that Trump, who frequently boasts in interviews and campaign appearances that he would beat Clinton in November, would lose a one-on-one contest against her by double digits. In a head-to-head fight, Clinton gets the support of 51 percent of registered voters compared to 38 percent for the real estate mogul.
For Sanders, the margin of victory would be even greater, the poll shows.
The Vermont senator gets 55 percent support in a hypothetical two-person race against Trump, while the GOP front-runner would get just 37 percent.
For the record, Rubio ties Hillary at 46%. while Cruz trails within the margin of error, 45/47. The pollsters didn’t ask about head-to-head matchups against Sanders for either of the two Republican Senators, which is too bad, as a Sanders nomination is still not out of the realm of possibility.
Readers should consider a couple of caveats in this poll. First, the sample leans toward desiring a Democratic president, 46/42, asked prior to the candidate questions (the sample overall is D+6). Second, head-to-head polling at this stage still carries a lot of emotional freight that may well disappear after the conventions, or at least diminish significantly. If Trump wins the nomination, he will have months to shift his approach for the general election and test whether he’s right about building a large coalition of disaffected non-Republicans.
However, the favorability numbers show why Trump struggles against the two Democrats, at least at this stage. Hillary gets a 38/51, or -13 favorability rating, in this poll; Sanders has a +7 at 43/36. Rubio has a -11 at 28/39, likely the product of his fierce and personal attacks on Trump, but Cruz does worse with -18 at 27/45. Trump, however, gets only 25/64 for a -39 rating, by far the worst in the field. Trump also does worst among all candidates for potential support in a general election at 32/67 (although not that far behind Cruz and Rubio), and also worst among Republican primary voters for support for the nomination at 56/43.
Given that, it’s hardly surprising that Trump does poorly in a general pool of registered voters — now, anyway. Would that change once the GOP infighting stops and Republicans accept Trump as the nominee? Maybe, but at that point the media will likely become entirely hostile to Trump and probably a lot less generous about air time, too. If Trump didn’t adjust by organizing effectively on the ground — and there’s still time to do that, especially with the RNC’s efforts already in place — then those negatives would likely drive Trump’s chances into the slim or none category.
Trump needs to SCREAM from the rooftops when he is in the general election. He needs to SCREAM how Bernie Sanders is getting schlonged by Hillary and the establishment. He needs to SCREAM how the primaries are being stolen from Sanders. Why? Bernie just won the Michigan primaries but guess what? Hillary is being awarded more delegates. And this is not the first time this has hapened to Bernie. So why should Trump care to point out this injustice? Because 30 % of Bernie’s supporters said they would not vote for Hillary in a recent poll. Trump needs to give the Bernie supporters a solid reason why not to vote for Hillary. If indeed 30% will not vote for Hillary Trump wins the title of Mr. President by a landslide.
Actually, out of 30 polls on the head-to-head race, Trump only wins against Hillary in 4 of them, and those are in the margin of error. He has consistently lost to Hillary in these polls. So you can argue that a head-to-head poll is not valid this early and you might have a point. But to say that the poll is an outlier is just false on its face.
I think Hillary outpolls all her opponents, until she starts campaigning against them.
The only time she won an election is in New York, where Republicans can’t win any statewide office.
She can’t beat Sanders in all the Democratic primaries, and he doesn’t even call himself a Democrat!
The media and the GOP threw all the stuff at Trump Hillary & the Dems would have and came through unbowed.
Trump can thank them for testing him now rather than later. As he said, they aired $38 million worth of negative ads against him and he still won.
Trump is a tried and tested candidate. People know all his weaknesses now and they still ended up voting for him.
CW was all that stuff would sink Trump. CW turned out to be dead-wrong.
I’ve said for over a year now that Hillary has to be heavily favored to win in 2016 and 2020. Actually, I think any democrat is heavily favored. It’s just the way that the electorate is and the way the map plays out.
The GOP 1980 playbook is outdated, I’m afraid. The GOP has only won the popular vote in the presidential election once since 1988. That’s a very long time. It’s not getting any better.
I think Hillary is likely to win, but definately can be beat. It would take an unconventional candidate waging an unconventional campaign, and even then it is a long shot. Business as usual (a Romney, a Rubio, a Cruz, or a Kasich) will just go through the motions and give a forgettable concession speech one election night.
I honestly think that we’re in a period of liberal ascension and dominance that will last over half a century. The best chance to break that up is to change the questions when the other side is certain of all the answers.
Has any WSJ/NBC poll been remotely on target yet this cycle? I swear at this point they just make up some numbers claim its a poll and put it out there.
The Democratic primaries are rigged for Hillary.
She wins even she loses, thanks to the superdelegates.
She lost MI but in reality she picked up a lot more delegates there than Sanders thanks to SDs she has in her pocket.
Hillary has left nothing to chance.
I don’t trust any poll the Wall Street Journal is involved in.
RE: Has any WSJ/NBC poll been remotely on target yet this cycle?
See here:
http://graphics.wsj.com/wsjnbcpoll/
Just type in the state.
The got it right in South Carolina
They also got it right in New Hampshire
They got it right in Michigan
They got it right in Super Tuesday -— Georgia, Tennessee and Texas
See here:
http://graphics.wsj.com/wsjnbcpoll/
Just type in the state.
The got it right in South Carolina
They also got it right in New Hampshire
They got it right in Michigan
They got it right in Super Tuesday -— Georgia, Tennessee and Texas
Wishful thinking on your part. It’s going to be shocking even to people who think they’ve seen it all when the MSM/Democrat attack machine really goes to work on Trump.
This should make the Trump bashers here ecstatic.
RE: How many times have you posted this nonsense under different headlines?
For me? Once.
RE: This should make the Trump bashers here ecstatic.
They call me a Trump basher for posting articles like these ( as if the only poll results allowed in FR should be favorable to Trump ).
But I am not ecstatic reading this poll.
I am ABC Voter <— Anybody but Clinton (or Sanders for that matter).
“I think we all know if NBC/WSJ says it’s true, it’s an outlier.”
Except this is like the 20th out of the last 22 polls taken in which Trump gets beat badly by Clinton. Last night he was talking about how he’s beating Hillary in “poll after poll.” I’d like to see a poll taken within the last 2-3 weeks that shows him winning the general.
“I am ABC Voter <— Anybody but Clinton (or Sanders for that matter).”
I am, too.
There was one besides the current one where they got it spectacularly wrong. Don’t have time to fish it out right now. They loathe Trump. Open-borders crowd.
Aye, the only poll that counts is at the ballot box.
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