Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Are Winning Votes, but Not Hearts
The victories were lopsided. The celebrations were effusive. The delegates were piling up by the hundreds.
But Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton’s resounding triumphs on Tuesday masked a profound, historic and unusual reality: Most Americans still don’t like him. Or her.
Both major parties must now confront the depth of skepticism, resistance and distaste for their front-runners, a sentiment that would profoundly shape a potential general election showdown between Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton.
Even as they watched the two candidates amass large margins on Tuesday, historians and strategists struggled to recall a time when more than half the country has held such stubbornly low opinions of the leading figures in the Democratic and Republican Parties.
“There is no analogous election in the modern era where the two top candidates for the nomination are as divisive and weak,” said Steve Schmidt, a top campaign adviser to George W. Bush in 2004 and John McCain in 2008. “There is no precedent for it.”
But Mr. Trump has unnerved many Americans with his inflammatory oratory and radical-sounding proposals. And Mrs. Clinton, while viewed as a more seasoned and serious political figure, has struggled in her campaign to win the trust of the American electorate. And it is all but impossible for the country to take a fresh look at them.
According to Gallup, 53 percent of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of Mrs. Clinton and 63 percent have such a view of Mr. Trump.
“You are talking about two universally known figures here,” said David Axelrod, the Democratic strategist and former adviser in the Obama White House. “The strong feeling that each generates is unusual.”
The negative perceptions will be difficult to overcome.
Fewer than half of Republican voters across five states on Tuesday said Mr. Trump was honest and trustworthy. Even in the states where he won, a majority of voters do not view him as truthful.
And while majorities of Democratic voters viewed Mrs. Clinton as honest and trustworthy, she finished second to Mr. Sanders among those who said honesty mattered most in their decision.
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