A new Pew survey has some interesting confirmation of what a lot of folk have suspected about this presidential election.
To wit, a lot more people are voting negatively this election — voting against someone they dislike — than in the past. That's not surprising, given the low popularity of both Clinton and Trump.
What's interesting to me is that, among supporters of Clinton or Obama, a majority indicate that they are voting for the candidate, vs. against their opponent. The margin is more slender this year — 54% say they are more voting for Clinton vs 46% against Trump — but still it's a "positive" number.
Among people who are planning to vote for Trump, though, the support is upside down. Fewer Trump voters are voting that way because they are for Trump (44%) than that they are against Clinton (53%). Which lines up with the limited anecdata I have on the subject for non-frothing-at-the-mouth Trumpers.
Still, that's extraordinary. It's not surprising that, given her numbers (and decades of attacks from the Right) that Clinton inspires so much vehement opposition, but that the GOP candidate himself is more voteworthy, not on his own merits, but because he is Not Clinton, speaks wonders. The number is significantly higher than folk in 2008 voting for McCain (59%) vs. against Obama (35%).
What does this mean? To me it's that Trump is kind of stuck. It's unlikely he can get even more people mistrusting of Clinton than already are. But the numbers who are actually pro-Trump seems pretty small, smaller than the overall vote for Trump makes it seem. For Trump to get more votes, he really can't continue making a case against Clinton — he's already done that, and it's not enough. He has to make a case for himself. And that's going to take some truly awesome salesmanship.
