For all the elaborate theater of Marco Rubio’s and Jeb Bush’s announcements for the 2016 presidential race in their home state, Hillary Clinton, the New Yorker, ex-Arkansan and Democrat, still leads the two Republican hopefuls: Rubio by three points, and Bush by four.
Ironically for Bush, he is within one point of Clinton in Ohio, and four points behind in Pennsylvania, suggesting that his home state advantage is not playing in his favor so far. Rubio is now ahead of Clinton by a point in Pennsylvania, and three points behind her in Ohio. That’s just beyond the margin of error in the Ohio segment of the latest swing-state poll by Quinnipiac University, reputed to be among the most reliable pollsters in presidential elections.
But Clinton has another problem that has no name attached to it other than her own: her trustworthiness and honesty. In all three swing states, more than half the voters say Clinton is neither trustworthy nor honest (51 percent in Florida, 53 percent in Ohio, 54 percent in Pennsylvania). That’s a reflection of her perceived role in the Benghazi affair, though a Republican congressional panel cleared her of wrongdoing, and more notably in her decision to conduct all her email business from her personal account when she was secretary of state, before deleting all those documents. Rubio’s record of financial mismanagement and Bush’s own use of a private email server for public business have not hurt either of them as much so far.
“It’s a long way until Election Day, but in the critical swing states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida has a tiny edge over the GOP field,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac Poll. “Most of the eight GOP hopefuls are within striking distance of Secretary Hillary Clinton in at least one of the three states. In Ohio, Gov. Kasich leads.” The poll was taken before Donald Trump’s announcement Tuesday that he would also be running for the presidency as a Republican. “But perhaps more troubling for her than the continuing slide is how she is perceived by voters who continue to say she is not honest and trustworthy.”
Being honest and trustworthy is the most important quality in deciding their vote, 39 percent of Florida voters say, while 28 percent most want strong leadership qualities and 32 percent most want a candidate who cares about their needs and problems. Voters say 50 to 34 percent that Rubio is honest and trustworthy (with 34 percent saying he’s not); 52 to 33 percent that he has strong leadership qualities and 53 to 37 percent that he cares about their needs and problems. Bush scores 52-36 percent on being honest, 62-29 percent on strong leadership and 48-43 percent for caring for voters’ needs and problems.
Clinton has higher favorability ratings than either Bush or Rubio (47 percent in Florida, to Bush’s 42 and Rubio’s 38), with the gender gap working strongly in her favor: she has a double-digit lead among women when matched against Rubio or Bush.
In Ohio, “Gov. John Kasich’s 47 – 40 percent lead over Secretary Clinton is the largest of any GOP candidate in any of the three states,” Brown said. “With Ohio being such a critically important state – no Republican has ever won the White House without carrying it – that gives Gov. Kasich a key talking point about why he should be the nominee.” But Kasich polls well only in Ohio. In Florida, Clinton would beat him 48 to 35 (more easily than she’d beat Ted Cruz), and she’d beat him by six points in Pennsylvania. In Real Clear Politics’ latest aggregate of polls for the Iowa Caucus, a Midwestern state that should play more favorably to a Midwestern candidate, for example, Kasich is in next-to-last place, just ahead of Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, with only 2 percent, in a field led by Scott Walker of Wisconsin, with 18.3, followed by Rubio with 9.8.
The poll was conducted from June 4 to 15, surveying by landlines and cell phones, in live interviews, 1,147 Florida voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Some 1,191 Ohio voters were interviewed (2.8 percent margin), and 970 voters in Pennsylvania were interviewed (3.2 percent).
m&m says
Both her and her husband belong in prison.
Mark says
How many of the polled voters were democrats, how many were independents, and how many republicans?
Mrs. President says
She gets my vote!
a tiny manatee says
Probably, and GW and cheney should be tried for war crimes and then hung. Shit rises to the top, just look at the governor of florida.
Maria Isabel says
I’m voting for Bernie Sanders.
Mike says
She is a liar and a crook, and her policies are in lockstep with the current bum-in-chief. Even most of Obama’s early supporters now realize that he is an incompetent weasel; it seems almost inconceivable that, based on the last six years, people would actually vote for this pig. Can you imagine having to look at, and listen to this dog on TV every day for four years?
Bob says
If you are thinking of voting for Clinton, you need to retake your SATs, and IQ test and seek mental help!
groot says
Rubio, Bush or Hillary? OMG! Has it come to this? Before Obama made his mess, I would have voted for Hillary. Now, I’m not so sure. She needs to distance herself from Obama. If the Republicans would take this stuff serious, we would have an alternative. A teabagger or an idiot? It’s a walk in for Hillary in this scenario.
Sandra Reynolds says
Wow Mike. Did you not take your nice pills today? What a nasty thing to say about Hillary. I bet you voted. for McCain because of how pretty Sarah Palin was. and Obama is a weasel? Did you know this weasel was voted again as the most admired man in the world? And his ratings aren’t that bad either.
Tired of it says
I’m a sure we have not heard all the dirt on Billary yet. It will be interesting and amusing to watch the Republican candidate’s tear her apart.
a tiny manatee says
Considering what the republicans are fielding as candidates, I think they’ll be too busy tearing each other apart.
snapperhead says
Personally I can’t think of anything that’ll be more interesting and amusing than seeing The Donald take the stage at a GOP debate.
Mamma B says
I love how they refer to “Rubio’s record of financial mismanagement” which is code for he bought a boat (cuz that’s what people in Florida do) and he had student loan debt. I’m not a Rubio fan but I can’t believe the biased media actually thinks that even remotely compares to what Hillary has done. I don’t support another Bush in office either because I don’t think they are very trustworthy either. Why won’t democrats be as critical of their own candidates as they are of republican candidates? I wouldn’t vote for anyone with her kind of record, R or D, but democrats will pull that lever regardless!
Outsider says
Admired for what; being black? Obama’s resume wouldn’t have qualified him for assistant manager at Dairy Queen, yet a majority of the voters decided he was the best choice to put in charge of the world’s (at the time, largest,) and most complex economy at one of it’s biggest crises in history. I blame the stupid American voters, to use one of Obama’s top advisor’s words, for that. Let’s list his accomplishments: iRS in disarray, TSA in disarray, Secret Service in dissaray, race relations at their worst in decades, Libya lost, Egypt lost, only to be saved by it’s own military, Iran getting stronger and nukes to be paid for by Obama lifting the sanctions. Russia invaded Crimea, the Chinese are claiming the entire South China Sea and building stationary aircraft carriers out coral reefs. The Chinese yuan will soon be a world reserve currency because of the discontent with prolific dollar printing, and they will continue to break the rules on currency valuation even after this happens. And Hillary, how did that corny “reset” dog and pony show go with Vladimir? And how about her pushing to take out Qaddafi? She boasted “We came, we saw, and he died.” Yeah stupid, and 18 months later ISIS was swimming in the embassy swimming pool in Tripoli because spineless abandoned it because the whole country was too dangerous. How about “we came, we saw, he died, and then we had to high tail our ass out of there as a result? I could go on, but I’ve got other things to do. Keep voting for cliches and symbolism, and we won’t have a country worth a turd before long.
Nalla C says
I don’t know a single Dem that’s voting for this corrupted sellout. Clinton is worse than Obama and she won’t fix anything for anybody but the 1%.
Vote for BERNIE SANDERS in the primary and let’s get a decent, honest, hard-working candidate on the Democratic ticket. Sanders is the ONLY candidate working for regular people and he has NO baggage–unlike Hillary and the entire clown car on the right. .
Sandra Reynolds says
If you want to tear Obama’s presidency apart fine. We could tear every recent president apart. And we will continue doing that for the next president and so on. it is the American way. You are just one man in this world….your opinion is not worth the time you took for your bashing. Try to think happy thoughts, it is better for your health. you will need it if Rubio or Jeb gets in office.
Sandra Reynolds says
Nails I too like Sanders, but there isn’t the money behind him like all the other greedy bums.
Devrie says
It either takes money or people (votes). A lot of people support Sanders.
Anonymous says
I don’t want sanders Hillary or bush. The good thing about sanders is at least he is honest about being a socialist. So to the question at hand WHY is Florida leaning to this vile Hillary Clinton? easy we have been over run by far left Ds from the North simple.
a tasty bacon sidedish says
The people of florida had no problems electing skeletor to office twice, so I think your reasoning is off a little here.
tulip says
The voters of Florida had no problem voting in Gov Scott, the guy who committed mega fraud from Medicare for his medical clinics and now has all his medical clinics in his wife’s name. Therefore, the Florida voters will have no problem voting for a Devisive, schemeing liar and cheat named Hillary.
I don’t like Trump, but at least he is gives the whole thing a bit of comical relief. This election year is going to be a circus of unimpressionable candidates spewing out the same old rhetoric. I can’t imagine any of them in a serious confrontation with our enemies and taking care of business, just more of the same ol same ol.
Sandra Reynolds says
I don’t think the candidate’s background makes a hill of beans. The Democrats will vote for Hillary whether they like her or not because they don’t want a Republican leading this country again. And the Republicans will vote for any one of the clowns in the car because they don’t want another Democrat leading this country. Both parties would rather vote for Mickey Mouse than cross the party line. It is as simple as that. Nothing will ever change in the political arena as long as it is a two party system.
Nalla C says
And that’s by design–what he lacks in money from corporations, he makes up for in small donations and sheer honesty. He won’t take a cent from corpos and he’s still drawing big crowds. Please do your part to help get him elevated over Hillary on the left–he’s a far better candidate than she is!
maw says
She going to be our next president.