A majority of Americans disapprove of the FBI’s recommendation to clear Hillary Clinton in the email investigation, but most say the outcome doesn’t affect their vote. Republicans are unlikely to benefit from renewed racial tensions. And Gary Johnson could hurt Hillary Clinton in a close race. This is HuffPollster for Monday, July 11, 2016.
MOST AMERICANS DISAGREE WITH FBI ON CHARGING CLINTON - Scott Clement: “A majority of Americans reject the FBI’s recommendation against charging Hillary Clinton with a crime for her State Department e-mail practices and say the issue raises concerns about how she might perform her presidential duties, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. …The Post-ABC poll found 56 percent disapprove of Comey’s recommendation against charging Clinton while 35 percent approve. The survey mentioned Comey’s reasoning that Clinton did not have criminal intent but that he found her actions were extremely careless handling e-mails. Roughly 6 in 10 independents disapprove of the recommendation against charges (59 percent), rising to nearly 9 in 10 Republicans (88 percent) and falling to 31 percent of Democrats….[Fifty-seven] percent in the poll say the issue worries them about how she might handle responsibilities if elected president, while 39 percent say it’s not related to how she would perform as president…Among all voters, 60 percent say the outcome makes no difference in their vote choice, including an identical share of political independents.” [WashPost]
DOES PARTISANSHIP MAKE RACIAL TENSIONS WORSE? - Philip Bump: “We take for granted the fact that America’s racial divide overlaps with our political one. In 2013, Gallup found that 89 percent of Republicans were non-Hispanic whites….The density of whites in the Democratic Party was lower, at 60 percent; the portion of the party that was non-Hispanic black was about a fifth….While the Democratic Party is more racially diverse, black Americans are not very politically diverse. Pew Research regularly surveys to figure out the partisan blend in the country, and in 2014 it determined that whites were more likely to identify as Republican than Democrat, 49 percent to 40 percent — a margin that mirrors Gallup. Blacks, on the other hand, were over seven times as likely to say that they’re Democrats. This is important. A Republican Party that’s mostly white. A black population that’s mostly Democratic….Race and partisanship are so sufficiently intertwined at this point that it can be hard to determine the effect one has on the other. Are attitudes about Black Lives Matter split by party because they’re split by race? Have liberal politics shaped the movement as much as racial ones? Then again, race and partisanship have always been intertwined.” [WashPost]
But white Democrats are still way more likely to support BLM than white Republicans - Juliana Menasce Horowitz and Gretchen Livingston: “The Black Lives Matter movement…continues to gain attention following other incidents involving the deaths of black Americans during encounters with the police. A recent Pew Research Center survey conducted Feb. 29-May 8, 2016, found that general awareness of Black Lives Matter is widespread among black and white U.S. adults, but attitudes about the movement vary considerably between groups….Roughly four-in-ten Americans support the Black Lives Matter movement. All told, 43% support the movement, including 18% who strongly support it….White Democrats are about as likely as blacks to express at least some support for the Black Lives Matter movement – about two-thirds (64%) do, compared with 42% of white independents and 20% of white Republicans….Roughly two-thirds (64%) of those who have heard at least a little about Black Lives Matter say they understand the movement’s goals very or fairly well.” [Pew]
RISING RACIAL TENSIONS UNLIKELY TO HELP TRUMP OR REPUBLICANS - Michael Tesler: “The nation’s deteriorating race relations may seem like a good campaign issue for Republicans. After all, the incumbent party is often punished in presidential elections when things go wrong in the country. Presidents have even been punished for unfortunate events well beyond their control, such as shark attacks and droughts. White backlash against rising racial tensions and urban violence in the 1960s was considered a boon to the Republican Party in general and to Richard Nixon’s 1968 presidential campaign to restore law and order in particular…. For starters, the Democratic Party is much less reliant on white voters than it was in 1968. The electorate was about 90 percent white in 1968, compared with an expected 69 percent in 2016. Perhaps more important, race no longer holds the same capacity as a wedge issue to divide the Democratic Party….But the most important reason why rising racial tensions will not help Trump is Trump himself…. [T]he public views Trump as a racially divisive figure. Two-thirds of Americans say that the presumptive Republican nominee is “unfairly biased” against minority groups, and a slim majority thought that his attack on the Mexican American judge who is presiding over the Trump University lawsuit was ‘racist.’ [WashPost]
GUN CONTROL POLICY COULD BENEFIT DEMOCRATS - David Rothschild: “Voters strongly support additional gun control measures, something backed by Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and rejected sharply by the Republican rank-and-file, including presidential candidate Donald Trump. In the other direction, voters strongly support reducing the number of immigrants coming to the US, something backed by Trump and rejected by Clinton, again in unison with most of the Democratic rank-and-file….So far, it looks like the Republican wedge appeal could be more hurtful to the Democratic coalition than vice-versa. But, we believe that the Democratic wedge appeal might resonate more with Republicans than the Republican wedge appeal with Democrats come November: Support for additional gun control is trending upwards over time, while support for limiting immigrants is trending downward. According to this data, what was a winning strategy in the primaries may not be as successful in November. Of course, exogenous shocks, events beyond the control of either candidate, can always change the course of things.” [HuffPost]
A MAJORITY OF REPUBLICAN VOTERS DOUBT REPUBLICANS WILL UNITE BEHIND TRUMP - Alec Tyson: “A new Pew Research Center survey finds that 54% of Republican and Republican-leaning registered voters think disagreements within the party will keep many Republicans from supporting Trump. Fewer (38%) think the party will solidly unite behind him. It is unusual for partisans to doubt that their party will unite behind the nominee at this stage of the campaign. In 2012, a majority of Republicans (65%) thought their party would unite behind Mitt Romney in the spring of that year and about the same share (63%) believed that the party would unite behind John McCain in 2008. On the Democratic side, sentiment is much more positive: 72% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters expect their party to unite solidly behind Hillary Clinton, compared with just 24% who think disagreements will keep many from supporting her.” [Pew]
GARY JOHNSON COULD HURT CLINTON IF THE RACE NARROWS - Harry Enten: “Right now, pollsters that include Johnson and, less frequently, Stein are showing Clinton with a slightly smaller lead than pollsters that test only Trump and Clinton. You can see this by looking at the national polls taken since June 1....Overall, including third-party candidates takes about 1 percentage point away from Clinton’s margin, on average. We can argue about the significance of a single percentage point. It’s not a very big deal when Clinton is leading by 5.5 percentage points in the FiveThirtyEight national polling average and is projected to win the national vote by 6.3 percentage points in the FiveThirtyEight polls-only model. (Note that our model prefers the versions of polls that include Johnson. Otherwise, Clinton’s advantage would be slightly larger.) The discrepancy could, however, become an issue if the race becomes tighter. Although Clinton has been hurt by the inclusion of third-party candidates over the past month, it hasn’t been consistent.” [538]
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MONDAY’S ‘OUTLIERS’ - Links to the best of news at the intersection of polling, politics and political data:
-Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the least popular nominees within their own parties since 1992. [Vox]
-Philip Bump explains why Trump’s 17-state campaign strategy doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. [WashPost]
-Julia Azari highlights the states where third party candidates are likely to do well. [538]
-Pollsters don’t think Gary Johnson will be much of a factor in November. [Boston.com]
-Kirby Goidel and Keith Gaddie explain that public opinion doesn’t support states seceding from the U.S. [HuffPost]
-Seven in 10 Americans think Universities should not consider race and ethnicity in admissions decisions. [Gallup]
-Four in 10 Brits want a second referendum before any formal steps to leave the European Union are taken.. [Independent]
-Americans under 55 years old are just as likely to be motivated by music than coffee on Monday morning. [Ipsos]