UH OH: Donald Trump’s unfavorables are disastrous

If we want a candidate that can win in the general election, we don’t want a nominee whose unfavorable numbers are worse than that of Hillary Clinton.

Right Wing News has posted a historical chart which shows the unfavorables of other famous (or infamous) politicians who have high unfavorable numbers. Notice where Trump lands:

unfavorables

His unfavorables are 7 points worse than Hillary.

Here’s what Right Wing News points out:

Donald Trump has the same numbers that Jimmy Carter did early on in 1980. As you can see from the chart, Carter did improve his numbers a bit by election time, but he still lost in one of the biggest landslides in American history; 489-49.

For most of the candidates, their favorability ratings this early don’t matter that much because a large percentage of the public hasn’t formed an opinion. In Trump’s case, more people hold an unfavorable opinion of him than of Nixon AFTER Watergate. When 91% of people already have an opinion of you and 58% don’t like you, you are as close to dead in the water as it gets for a politician.

But, you say what about Trump’s rabid fans? What about the large crowds?

Well, Ron Paul drew big crowds and had rabid fans as well. In one sense, they were even more enthusiastic than Trump supporters because they also ponied up a lot of money while Trump’s fund raising has been mediocre. Unfortunately for Ron Paul, he couldn’t bring in enough people beyond his diehard supporters to win a general election. Donald Trump has a bigger fanbase than Paul. It may even be big enough for him to win the primaries, but he’d be in even worse shape than Paul in a general election because so many people already know who he is and don’t like him.

I don’t think Donald Trump is a bad guy. If he’s our guy, I will vote for him and do what I can to get him elected, but I think it’s over before it gets started if Trump’s the nominee.

He makes a great point about public opinion already being formed on The Donald because he’s so well known. In fact I’d say that Trump is probably a household name at this point. You have to live in a hole not to know who he is at this point.

Here’s the way all the Republican candidates stack up since Nov 1:

favorability_rnc

Something to think about.


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