That’s up from 46% in March. The breakdown was:
Does this mean she’s unelectable in the general? Or does it mean nothing?
N.B.: Unlike the telephone poll Zogby conducted in March, this was an online poll – which does not necessarily mean it is unscientific, but does mean the respondent pool was limited to persons with Internet access.
Truthfully, I don’t look too carefully at polls that aren’t “likely voters,” and I don’t think this one is.
Well, Zogby at least says it is.
They’re in the polling business – presumably they use some widely-accepted-in-the-industry method of determining who is or is not a “likely voter.”
You don’t need 50% of the population to vote for you in order to win the election. Lots of those guys don’t even vote. It seems quite easy for the same candidate to be named for both questions of “who would you NEVER vote for?” and “who would you vote for, no matter what?”
Her husband never got 50% and was elected/re-elected in electoral landslides.
It’s nice to hear that her negatives are increasing. Thanks for letting us know. I was worried that as we got further away from her years as co-POTUS and her spin machine had a chance to do its job that people the negatives would decrease. Apparently as more people get to know her more people get sick to their stomach. Maybe it’s her laugh. Maybe that great idea about me paying $5,000 for your kid and you paying $5,000 with her in the middle to take credit.
Count me as one of the 50%. I’d vote for almost anyone before I’d vote for her. If Obama runs I stay home for the campaign and probably vote Republican. But if HC wins the nomination I have lots of time and money to donate to whoever runs against her.
But that only happens when there’s a serious third-party candidate in the field, such as Perot or Nader. There are Pubs threatening to bolt and back a third candidate if Giuliani gets the nomination . . . we’ll just have to wait and see.
“Apparently as more people get to know her more people get sick to their stomach.”
And still more people like her enough to be the only Democratic candidate that holds against all Republican candidates in the polls. This “unelectability meme” will get a lot more traction if the Edwards and Obama camp are not lagging miserably behind Hillary in every poll and can only manage a statistical tie at best with Giuliani. Unelectable? Not according to actual polls.
I’m going to go for “means nothing.” And that’s from someone who is highly unlikely to vote for her. Half the people won’t vote for Hillary? Ok. 45 percent won’t vote for Giulani and 42 percent won’t vote for Romney. Two of those three people are probably going to get nominated to run for President, and if so, one of them will win despite that rating.
Most of the people who won’t vote for Clinton won’t vote for any of the other Democrats either, likewise for most of the people who won’t vote for Romney and Giuliani. If she has the Democrats behind her and can reach out to particular groups of independents, that’ll probably be enough. I think she can probably do that much.
Another poster chiming in to say that this still means nothing. We’re still over a year from the elections, and contrary to popular view, the primaries are NOT set, yet. We don’t have an actual ticket. From either major party. It’s easy, now, to say one will never vote for candidate A or B. Come time for the election things will likely be different.
Am I the only one who is disappointed that the number of people saying they’d never vote for Ron Paul is lower than those who object to Hillary?
ETA: BTW, BG did Zogby mention what it’s error rate on the two polls you’re referencing was? ISTR that most polls have a +/- 3% error margin. It seems to me that it’s likely that if one were to take the band for the two polls they’d overlap nicely. I’m not sure that this is even a signifigant change in the trend since March.
Not true. Quite a few people don’t vote at all. So if someone says they would never vote for a certain cantidate, it doesn’t mean they will certainly be voting for the other guy.
Could you cite one example of such poll? Because this page says Edwards is doing better against Giuliani than Hillary is.
I’m a Democrat and it’s always been shocking for me to see Hillary doing as well as she is doing in the polls. I like her, I’d vote for her, but I just cannot see her being elected the US president because she is such a polarizing candidate. I mean people who don’t like Hillary just hate her, and a hell of a lot of middle America, from what I can tell, really does not like her at all. I really don’t think the Democrats can win the election with Hillary. I hope I’m wrong, but I just don’t think she’s the right candidate if we want to control the executive branch. This poll bears that out.
I don’t where the depth of hatred makes any difference. If you don’t like her, you won’t vote for her. If you really hate her, you won’t vote for her. What’s the difference?
As has been pointed out, she does not need 50% of the voters. She needs 270 electoral votes. Lots of ways to skin that cat, even when half the country hates you.
Well, what I see is this hate is infectious. People I know who I would consider moderates or flip-flop Republican/Democrat won’t vote for her because there is such a strong stigma against her. It’s hard to ignore.
I’ve noticed that from people who don’t know much about the candidates (which would probably encompass a big portion of my friends), Hillary leaves a bad taste in their mouths. They can’t articulate exactly why they dislike her–they are just very suspicious of her, and I think a lot of that has to do with the smear campaign the more right-wing Republicans have been mounting against her since Bill’s first term.
Like I said, I hope you’re wrong, by my impression, even in the Democratic stronghold of Chicago, a lot of folks are leery of her.
When I used to work for ABC, their head polling guy (who is an obsessive wanker about this kind of thing) did not think any poll of this nature was worth its weight in electrons. And electrons are pretty damn light…
It’s just too self-selecting… those who hate someone are more likely to participate than the generic would-be voter reached over the phone.
IMO, the harm would probably come from the fact that the ‘hate’ voter would be more likely to take pains to vote for the opposition candidate, whereas the ‘mere dislike’ voter may hold his/her nose and vote for the disliked candidate anyway if that candidate appeared to be the lesser of two evils, or perhaps not bother to vote at all. Also, I would expect that voters inspired by hatred would be more passionate in lobbying against the hated candidate to their family, friends and co-workers, and thereby influence other people to vote against that candidate as well.
Well, Poll after Poll shows her leading the Dems (there is strong likelyhood she’ll get nominated) and the same polls show her beating every GOP Candidate with the occasional exception of Giuliani (who is very unlikely to win the GOP nod).
So why won’t she win? Sure the Repubs won’t vote for her - or most any Dem anyway. So?
Who is going to beat her? Paul? :dubious: :rolleyes: (he rates 47% “never vote for”). Yes, if Giuliani really looks like he will win the GOP nod, then maybe the Dems have to worry about Clinton. Otherwise, it makes no difference.
And note that Kucinich and Gravel have “never vote for” % almost identical to Hillary.
Interestingly enough, Obama is polling better against Paul than Clinton is. Source.
However, both win against him.
Anyhow, these polls don’t mean anything in the end. I’m just skeptical about Hillary taking it. Like I said, I hope I’m proved wrong.
If Hillary gets nominated, she won’t win. I’m just saying that now so that Karma is tempted to prove me wrong and make me look ridiculous when this thread gets resurrected after the election.