Donald Trump has had a few rocky weeks on the campaign trail, and it
shows in the latest Fox News Poll. Just over half of Republicans would
rather have someone besides Trump as their nominee, and his support in
the presidential ballot test has dropped seven points since May.
Democrat Hillary Clinton is up 44-38 percent over
Trump in a head-to-head matchup. Earlier this month, Clinton had a
three-point edge (42-39 percent). In May, Trump was up by three (45-42
percent). Clinton’s current lead is just inside the poll’s margin of
sampling error.
The national poll, released Wednesday, finds she has a
similar advantage when voters are asked about confidence in the
candidates to make the “right” decisions for the country if they were
president: 48 percent are at least somewhat confident Clinton would.
It’s 42 percent for Trump.
In the matchup, Clinton is the choice among blacks
(87-3 percent), women (51-32 percent), voters under age 45 (45-35
percent), and those earning less than $50,000 annually (52-30 percent).
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL POLL RESULTS
Trump leads among white evangelical Christians (66-18
percent), whites without a college degree (51-33 percent), gun owners
(52-30 percent), whites (48-34 percent), men (46-36 percent), and
independents (39-31 percent).
Since May, Trump has lost ground with Republicans (-8 points), whites without degrees (-10 points), and men (-9 points).
The race is almost even among just those “extremely”
or “very” interested in the election (45 Clinton to 43 Trump). This
group went for Trump by four points in early June (45-41 percent).
Party unity is a trouble spot for Trump. Just 74
percent of Republicans back him over Clinton, down from 82 percent in
May. For comparison, Mitt Romney lost despite garnering 93 percent
support among Republicans in 2012. In addition, just over half of
Republicans would prefer a different nominee (51 percent someone else
vs. 48 percent Trump). And while most GOP voters describe Trump as
intelligent, more than 7-in-10 feel he’s hot-headed and obnoxious. More
on that later.
Eighty-three percent of Democrats support Clinton in
the ballot test. That’s better than Trump does among Republicans, yet
worse than the 92 percent backing President Obama received in 2012. By a
21-point margin, Democrats want Clinton (58 percent) as their party’s
nominee over Bernie Sanders (37 percent).
Some 66 percent of Democrats who preferred Sanders
are backing Clinton over Trump. By comparison, only 52 percent of
Republicans who want someone else to lead their party support Trump over
Clinton.
Twenty-four percent of Republicans lack confidence
that Trump would make the right decisions for the country. Fourteen
percent of Democrats feel that way about Clinton.
"The results here aren't disastrous for Trump given
the troubles he's encountered the past few weeks,” says Republican
pollster Daron Shaw, who conducts the Fox News Poll along with
Democratic pollster Chris Anderson. “He's within striking distance. But
he absolutely must combat the growing perception that he is
temperamentally unsuited and intellectually unprepared to be president."
What words best describe the candidates? There are a
couple things voters generally agree on, and that’s both Clinton and
Trump are patriotic -- and lack honesty.
Clinton outperforms Trump by the widest margin on
“experienced,” as 77 percent say that describes her, while just 34
percent feel the same of Trump.
Far more see Clinton (82 percent) than Trump (66
percent) as “intelligent,” and “sensible” (54 percent Clinton vs. 35
percent Trump).
About six-in-ten think “patriotic” fits each.
Clinton is still dogged by low honesty numbers, as a
record low 30 percent think she’s “honest and trustworthy,” and 58
percent describe her as “corrupt.”
Trump doesn’t have much to brag about here either:
just 34 percent describe him as “honest and trustworthy” and 45 percent
say “corrupt” fits.
Most voters feel Trump is “hot-headed” (89 percent)
and “obnoxious” (83 percent), while far fewer say those apply to Clinton
(35 percent “hot-headed” and 45 percent “obnoxious”).
Less than half say the phrase “cares about people
like me” describes Clinton (45 percent) and only about one third say it
fits Trump (35 percent).
“While our polling shows a clear positive trend for
Clinton, her six-point lead is notably small considering voters almost
universally think Trump is hot-headed and obnoxious, and most think he’s
inexperienced,” says Anderson.
“This race is nowhere close to breaking open, despite some huge perceived deficiencies in Trump’s character.”
Pollpourri
Libertarian Gary Johnson captures 10 percent in a
hypothetical three-way vote. That causes both Clinton and Trump to lose
ground, although for the most part she maintains her edge (41-36
percent). Another 14 percent is up for grabs.
Fully 92 percent of those backing Clinton in the
two-way race also back her in the three-way matchup. For Trump, 89
percent stick with him.
The contest for the Congress looks similar to the
presidential race. When voters are asked to choose between the
Democratic and Republican candidates in their district, Democrats are up
by five points, 46-41 percent.
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cellphone
interviews with 1,017 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and
was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D)
and Shaw & Company Research (R) from June 26-28, 2016. The poll
has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points
for all registered voters.