Almost Anyone Beats Hillary

The latest Fox News poll of 1,000 registered voters is pretty stunning. To begin with, nearly every Republican tested beats Hillary Clinton in the presidential race. Marco Rubio does best at 50%-42%, but Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush and Chris Christie also lead her. Carly Fiorina ties Hillary at 42%-42%.

This is partly an artifact of the moment, with terrorism rated first among important issues, with 24%. The Democrats’ favorite issues–climate change, race relations, gay marriage and abortion all rate close to the bottom with 3%, 3%, 2% and 2% respectively. More than that, though, this poll (and others like it) confirm what many have been saying for a long time: Hillary is a lousy candidate. The simplest indicator is the “honest and trustworthy” question, where Hillary comes out on the short end, 58% to 38%, with 4% undecided. That meagre undecided percentage is the killer: American voters know who Hillary is, they don’t like her, and they aren’t going to change their minds. Nevertheless, she wins the Democratic primary polls going away, simply because her party doesn’t have anyone else.

This survey also asked respondents about immigration from Syria. The question was: “The Obama administration plans for the United States to take in at least ten thousand refugees from Syria over the next year. Do you favor or oppose this decision?” The response: 28% favor, 67% choose the un-American option and oppose Obama’s plan.

The poll also tested voters’ reaction to the Democrats’ insistence that there is no such thing as radical Islamic terrorism (or if there is, we shouldn’t mention it). The question was:

All the current Democratic presidential candidates refuse to use terms like radical Islam and Islamic terrorists when describing those who committed the attacks in Paris. All the leading Republican presidential candidates use terms like radical Islamic terrorists to describe the attackers. Do you think the Democrats are doing the right thing by being careful not to blame Muslim ideology for the attacks, or are they doing the wrong thing by refusing to identify clearly the nature of the terrorist threat?

33% said the Democrats are doing the right thing, 56% said they are doing the wrong thing. This is probably related to the fact that 66% say “the United States is at war with radical Islam,” while only 29% disagree.

All of those numbers will bounce around from poll to poll, but the bottom line is that the issues landscape is currently bad for Democrats, whose candidate is also well known and poorly liked.

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