Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:34 pm
It isn’t just the popular vote that Donald Trump lost. According to a new Pew Research Poll, the American people preferred Hillary Clinton’s campaign to Donald Trump’s. Republicans have a big problem because most Americans prefer the candidate who won’t be president by multiple measurements.
According to Pew Research, “But voters’ “grades†for the way Trump conducted himself during the campaign are the lowest for any victorious candidate in 28 years. Just 30% of voters give Trump an A or B, 19% grade him at C, 15% D, while about a third (35%) give Trump a failing grade. Four years ago, most voters (57%) gave Obama an A or B, and after his 2008 election, 75% gave him an A or B. For the first time in Pew Research Center post-election surveys, voters give the losing candidate higher grades than the winner. About four-in-ten (43%) give Clinton an A or B, which is comparable to the share giving Mitt Romney top letter grades in 2012 (44%) and 13 percentage points higher than Trump’s (30%).”
As Hillary Clinton’s lead in the popular vote continues to climb, what is becoming clear is that it isn’t just a flood of blue areas where Clinton is popular. The minority managed to beat the majority in an election. How they accomplished this feat is a question for another time, but the nation has gone from a divided government to dividing itself.
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The problem for Republicans is that there is a majority of the electorate that is already angry and rejecting the incoming administration and Congress. There is already an iffy public opinion poll that shows a big bump for Trump, but after the polls managed to get everything wrong in the election, no one should believe a public opinion until they demonstrate reliability and consistency.
A research poll, such as the one that Pew conducted is different. Pew polls are highly regarded because they are not snapshots of public opinion like those mostly done by media companies and universities looking for publicity and headlines. If you are uncertain about Pew Research, know that their poll write up is five pages long with an entire sixth page devoted to explaining their methodology.
If the Pew poll is to be trusted, Republicans have a legitimacy problem.
President-elect Trump, Speaker Paul Ryan, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell can either address the problem by passing and signing legislation that benefits all Americans. They can govern from the middle and unite the country, or the more likely course is that they will ignore the majority, and slam through their own unpopular agenda.
There is a seething electorate that is waiting to vote them out of office. Republicans can choose a path where they demonstrate that they can lead the nation, or they push through as much of theor agenda as they can before the majority tosses them out on their collective ear.
Either way, the path forward for Republicans is full of problems, complications, and consequences.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
