Most Americans Are Still Somewhat Concerned About Clinton's Emails

But the people paying the most attention have already made up their minds about her.

The controversy surrounding Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state is neither going away nor rapidly gaining traction, a new survey finds.

In a HuffPost/YouGov poll conducted just after the Justice Department was asked to investigate Clinton's email use in late July, 66 percent of respondents said they were following the issue at least somewhat closely, little changed from the 65 percent who said the same in the weeks after the story broke this spring.

Thirty-five percent currently call her use of a personal email address a very serious problem, compared to 32 percent in March. Sixty percent now say it's at least a somewhat serious problem, a 6-point uptick from the previous survey.

Huffington Post

Opinions remained deeply divided along partisan lines, with Republicans five times more likely than Democrats -- 65 percent to 13 percent -- to describe Clinton's email usage as very serious.

Huffington Post

Perhaps fortunately for Clinton, the people most concerned with her email problems are unlikely to be swing voters.

Most Americans, especially those who dislike her, have already made up their minds: 29 percent said they'll definitely or probably vote for Clinton and 50 percent said they definitely or probably won't. Another 13 percent, mostly comprising political independents, say that they "might or might not vote for her," with the remainder completely unsure.

While 61 percent of people who said they probably or definitely won't vote for her consider it a very serious issue, just 14 percent of those who say their vote is a tossup are equally troubled.

With stories about Clinton's use of private email continuing to percolate, however, Republicans have argued they represent a larger indictment of her honesty. A majority of voters said they don't see Clinton as trustworthy in a number of recent surveys, a measure on which she scored relatively badly during her unsuccessful 2008 candidacy.

"There’s a sense of distrust, a sense of unease about her authenticity and her candor, that isn’t hard to stimulate," Steven Law, the president of the GOP super PAC American Crossroads, told The New York Times in July.

In the July survey, relatively few respondents who said they might or might not vote for her -- 11 percent -- cited her personal character as the main barrier to their support. Another 14 percent mentioned her stance on issues, while nearly two-thirds said they were still waiting to learn more about her or to see who else was running.

The HuffPost/YouGov poll consisted of 1,000 completed interviews conducted July 28-30 among U.S. adults, using a sample selected from YouGov's opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population.

The Huffington Post has teamed up with YouGov to conduct daily opinion polls. You can learn more about this project and take part in YouGov's nationally representative opinion polling. Data from all HuffPost/YouGov polls can be found here. More details on the polls' methodology are available here.

Most surveys report a margin of error that represents some, but not all, potential survey errors. YouGov's reports include a model-based margin of error, which rests on a specific set of statistical assumptions about the selected sample, rather than the standard methodology for random probability sampling. If these assumptions are wrong, the model-based margin of error may also be inaccurate. Click here for a more detailed explanation of the model-based margin of error.

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot