Jul
16

AP-GfK Poll: Clinton’s standing falls among Democrats

 
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton’s standing is falling among Democrats, and voters view her as less decisive and inspiring than when she launched her presidential campaign just three months ago, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll.

The survey offers a series of warning signs for the leading Democratic candidate. Most troubling, perhaps, for her prospects are questions about her compassion for average Americans, a quality that fueled President Barack Obama’s two White House victories.

Just 39 percent of all Americans have a favorable view of Clinton, compared to nearly half who say they have a negative opinion of her. That’s an eight-point increase in her unfavorable rating from an AP-GfK poll conducted at the end of April.

The drop in Clinton’s numbers extends into the Democratic Party. Seven in 10 Democrats gave Clinton positive marks, an 11-point drop from the April survey. Nearly a quarter of Democrats now say they see Clinton in an unfavorable light.

“I used to like her, but I don’t trust her,” said Donald Walters of Louisville, Kentucky. “Ever since she’s announced her candidacy for the presidency I just haven’t liked the way she’s handled things. She doesn’t answer questions directly.”

While Clinton’s approval rating fell, Obama’s stayed constant at 46 percent since April. More than 8 in 10 Democrats have a positive view of the president.

At least part of Clinton’s decline may be due to questions about her character, a topic Republicans have been trying to make central to the 2016 campaign. In ads, stump speeches and online videos, they paint her as a creature of Washington who flouts the rules to get ahead.

While Clinton has spent decades in the public eye, she’s focused in recent months on creating a more relatable — and empathetic — image. In public events, she frequently talks about her new granddaughter, Charlotte, and references her early career as a legal advocate for impoverished children.

The survey suggests that voters aren’t sold on her reinvention: Only 4 in 10 voters say they view Clinton as “compassionate.” Just 3 in 10 said the word “honest” described her either very or somewhat well.

Stephanie Bergholdo, a Democratic voter from Oak Park, California, says she finds Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren far more sincere in their liberal views — though she’s likely to vote for Clinton should she become the party’s nominee.

“She’s piggybacking on some of the things they’ve been talking about,” said Bergholdo. “I don’t think she comes across very genuine. She just seems a little stiff to me.”

The percentage of respondents calling Clinton at least somewhat inspiring also slipped from 44 percent to 37 percent.

Even the number of voters saying Clinton is at least somewhat decisive, previously a strong point for the former New York senator, fell from 56 percent in April to 47 percent in the new poll.

“She’s pretty much a run-of-the-mill Democrat,” said Mark Oldenburg of Madison, Wisconsin. “I don’t know that there’s anything particularly special about her.”

Other polls released this week show contrasting results. A Washington Post-ABC News survey found an uptick in Clinton’s favorability, while a Suffolk University-USA Today poll showed a slightly net negative rating.

That means the downturn for Clinton could be a result of random differences in survey sampling or a troubling trend for the dominant Democratic candidate, underscoring the undefined nature of the crowded early presidential campaign.

Democrats argue that a drop in her numbers is a predictable result of Clinton’s return to the partisan fray after years in the less overtly political position of secretary of state. Republicans, meanwhile, attribute the drop to questions about the financial dealings of Clinton’s family foundation and her use of an email account run from a server kept at her New York home while serving as secretary of state.

Clinton’s bad marks weren’t unique: Nearly all of the Republican candidates surveyed in the poll shared her underwater approval ratings. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a leading GOP candidate, saw his unfavorable ratings rise to 44 percent from 36 percent in April.

___

The AP-GfK Poll of 1,004 adults was conducted online Thursday to Monday, using a sample drawn from GfK’s probability-based KnowledgePanel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

Respondents were first selected randomly using phone or mail survey methods, and later interviewed online. People selected for KnowledgePanel who didn’t otherwise have access to the Internet were provided access with no cost to them.

___

Online:

AP-GfK Poll: http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com

Dec
22
AP-GfK Poll: Support for legal abortion at highest level in 2 years

WASHINGTON (AP) — Support for legal abortion in the U.S. has edged up to its highest level in the past two years, with an Associated Press-GfK poll showing an apparent increase in support among Democrats and Republicans alike over the last year.

Nearly six in 10 Americans — 58 percent — now think abortion should be legal in most or all cases, up from 51 percent who said so at the beginning of the year, according to the AP-GfK survey. It was conducted after three people were killed last month in a shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado.

While support for legal abortion edged up to 40 percent among Republicans in this month’s poll, from 35 percent in January, the survey found that the GOP remains deeply divided on the issue: Seven in 10 conservative Republicans said they want abortion to be illegal in most or all cases; six in 10 moderate and liberal Republicans said the opposite.

 Count 55-year-old Victor Remdt, of Gurnee, Illinois, among the conservatives who think abortion should be illegal in most cases. He’s adopted, and says he “wouldn’t be here talking” if his birth mother had opted for abortion rather than adoption. Remdt, who’s looking for work as a commercial driver, said he’d like to see abortion laws become more restrictive but adds that he’s not a one-issue voter on the matter.
 John Burk, a conservative Republican from Houston, Texas, is among those whose position on abortion is somewhere in the middle. He reasons that banning the procedure would only lead to “back-alley abortions.” But he’s open to restrictions such as parental notification requirements and a ban on late-term abortions.

Burk, a 59-year-old computer programmer, said he tracks his beliefs on the issue to his libertarian leanings and the fact that he’s not religious. He doesn’t see the nation coming to a resolution on the divisive issue any time soon, saying hard-liners on both sides of the question are entrenched and “they’re never going to change.”

Among Democrats, 76 percent of poll respondents now think abortion should be legal all or most of the time, up slightly from 69 percent in January.

Independents are more evenly split, with 54 percent saying abortion should be legal all or most of the time, edging up from 43 percent in January.

For Larry Wiggins, who describes himself as a liberal Democrat from Henderson, North Carolina, legal access to abortion should be — but isn’t — a settled matter.

“A woman has the right to decide what she wants to do with her body,” he said flatly. “I don’t think the government has the right to interfere.”

Nefertiti Durant, a 45-year-old independent voter from Columbia, Maryland, sees abortion as more complex matter, calling it “kind of a Catch-22.” She thinks a woman should have the right to choose abortion but she’s “not so keen on the fact that just anybody can go and have an abortion.” She worries that young people may not understand the effects of the procedure, and the “deep issues” that go along with it.

Still, she said, abortion is legal and “let’s just leave it at that. … I don’t think it’s a matter of discussion.”

It undoubtedly will be up for discussion, though, in a presidential election year. All of the Republican presidential candidates say they favor restricting abortion rights. The Democratic candidates support broad abortion rights.

Interest in the issue picked up this year after anti-abortion activists began releasing undercover videos they said showed Planned Parenthood personnel negotiating the sale of fetal organs. Planned Parenthood said any payments were legally permitted reimbursements for the costs of donating organs to researchers, and it has since stopped accepting even that money. Republicans have sought to cut off federal funding for Planned Parenthood, and several GOP-governed states have tried to block Medicaid funding to the organization.

Overall, the poll found, 45 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Planned Parenthood, and 30 percent have an unfavorable opinion. A quarter said they don’t know enough about the organization to say.

The AP-GfK Poll of 1,007 adults was conducted online Dec. 3-7, using a sample drawn from GfK’s probability-based KnowledgePanel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. Respondents were first selected randomly using telephone or mail survey methods, and later interviewed online. People selected for KnowledgePanel who didn’t otherwise have access to the Internet were provided access at no cost to them.

___

Online:

http://ap-gfkpoll.com

___

Follow Nancy Benac and Emily Swanson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/nbenac and http://www.twitter.com/EL_Swan
   
Dec
17
AP-GfK Poll: Tough immigration plans not a must for GOPers

WASHINGTON (AP) — Retired postal clerk Jerry Wilson likes what he hears from GOP presidential hopefuls about overturning President Barack Obama’s executive order easing deportation policies against people in the U.S. illegally.

But he’ll choose a Republican presidential nominee based on other issues — keeping American companies from moving overseas, for one. Keeping would-be attackers out of the country, for another.

“America comes first when you’re the president of the United States,” the Batavia, Ohio, resident, 67, said. “You do everything you can to keep America safe. What about migrants, people who are already here illegally? That’s not a do-or-die issue to me.”

For all of the ferocity and double-speak at the GOP debate over immigration reform, most Republicans like Wilson say the issue isn’t a decisive factor in their vote for president. Even among conservative Republicans, more than half — 56 percent — say they either prefer a candidate who would keep Obama’s immigration action in place or that they can imagine voting for a Republican presidential hopeful who would.

 The survey shows that Obama’s immigration actions last year, which allowed some immigrants to apply for temporary legal status, are a particular sticking point for Republicans. Seventy-three percent of them say they prefer to support the candidate who would undo those steps taken by this president, who is deeply unpopular within their party.

More broadly, more Americans — regardless of their political affiliation — favor than oppose a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who are in the United States illegally, the poll shows. Even among Republicans, — 4 in 10 of whom oppose making citizenship an option for people in the country illegally, it doesn’t seem to be a make-or-break issue in their choice for president. Four in 10 conservative Republicans and 3 in 10 tea party Republicans favor a path to citizenship for immigrants already in the country illegally.

Notably, the results from the Dec. 3 through Dec. 7 survey are unchanged since the questions were last asked in April — even after months of strong rhetoric by Republican presidential candidates, including front-runner Donald Trump, who proposes deporting the 11.5 million people in the country illegally.

The survey results are powerful data points for the GOP candidates with little more than six weeks to go before the first votes are cast in Iowa. Republican Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, both children of Cuban immigrants, are locked in an extraordinary battle for second place in the nomination fight, in large part over their positions on immigration. Rubio’s rivals had used his 2013 comprehensive immigration reform bill to cast him as a supporter of a path to citizenship for those here illegally. He hasn’t backed off that idea but has abandoned the notion of comprehensive reform on the complex issue and emphasizes border security first.

Cruz, meanwhile, is casting himself as an opponent to “legalization.” He proposed amendments to Rubio’s bill that would have massively increased legal immigration — but mostly, he says, to try to kill Rubio’s legislation.

While illegal immigration may not be a deal-breaker for Republicans on a national scale, few issues are more hotly contested on the ground in early voting states like Iowa and New Hampshire.

Some GOP conservatives often lash out at allowing people to stay in the U.S. illegally, producing an environment where Republican candidates like Rubio and Bush have been forced to distance themselves from their own more forgiving policies in the past.

But the poll shows immigration may not be the most pressing issue on Americans’ minds once voting begins in the GOP primary contest.

“No candidate fits everybody’s view,” said Terry Arnell of Tower Lakes, Ill., a retired insurance company manager who right now likes Trump. So, what will be Arnell’s priorities come election day?

“Gun rights. Securing our borders and certainly, securing as much as we can within our borders,” Arnell, 63, said. “I think it’s very important that we secure our borders now. Then, we can worry about the other illegals here.”

The AP-GfK Poll of 1,007 adults was conducted online Dec. 3-7, using a sample drawn from GfK’s probability-based KnowledgePanel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

___

Online:

http://ap-gfkpoll.com