The Mercury News

Brutal poll numbers greet Clinton at convention

- By Aaron Blake

It’s common for presidenti­al candidates to get a bump from their convention­s, and two new polls Monday suggest that Republican presidenti­al nominee Donald Trump did indeed get that.

But the polls don’t just show Trump’s stock rising. They have some very bad news for the presumptiv­e Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and her declining personal image. Here are four key points: 1) 68 percent say Clinton isn’t honest and trustworth­y.

That’s according to the CNN poll, and it’s her worst number on record. It’s also up from 65 percent earlier this month and 59 percent in May. The 30 percent who see Clinton as honest and trustworth­y is now well shy of the number who say the same of Trump: 43 percent.

You heard that right: Trump — he of the many, many Pinocchios — now has a large lead on Clinton when it comes to honesty and trustworth­iness.

2) Her image has never been worse.

CBS showed just 31 percent have favorable views of Clinton and 56 percent have unfavorabl­e ones. Even in Trump’s worst days on the campaign trail, he has rarely dipped below a 31 percent favorable rating. Clinton has hit that number a few times, but her negative-25 net favorable rating here is tied for the worst of her campaign, according to Huffington Post Pollster.

In the CNN poll, the 39 percent who say they have a favorable view of Clinton is lower than at any point in CNN’s regular polling since April 1992, when she wasn’t even first lady yet. Back then, the reason just 38 percent of people liked her was because many were unfamiliar with her. At the time, 39 percent were unfavorabl­e and 23 percent had no opinion.

Clinton’s favorable rating in the CNN poll is currently 16 points net-negative. That’s unpreceden­ted in the dozens of CNN polls on her since 1992.

3) Just 38 percent would be “proud” to have her as president

That’s down from 55 percent in March 2015. Sixty percent say they would not be proud.

4) Nearly half of Democratic primary voters still want Bernie Sanders.

Clinton dispatched with Sanders and now has his endorsemen­t, but despite 9 in 10 consistent Sanders supporters saying they’ll vote Clinton in November, many of them still pine for their first love.

The CNN poll, in fact, shows 45 percent of those who voted in Democratic primaries still say they wish it was the Vermont senator. Just 49 percent say they prefer Clinton, down from 55 percent a month ago.

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