What's Behind Hillary Clinton's Drop in the Polls?

[Purveyor]

The Democratic front-runner's problems may run deeper than her use of a private e-mail address and server when she was secretary of state.

Sep 15, 2015 5:00 AM EDT By David Knowles

All summer long, Hillary Clinton's support from Democratic voters has withered. In poll after poll, the slide has been captured in close to real time as the former secretary of state campaigns for president while struggling to contain the fallout from revelations that she used a private e-mail address and server on which she conducted government business.

Ongoing revelations in the e-mail story—which was first broken by the New York Times on March 2—correlate with Clinton's steadily declining poll numbers and were again cited by the Washington Post on Monday with the release of the latest national survey showing a steep drop in Democratic support for Clinton.

“The period since the last survey coincides with the news that the FBI is looking into the security of e-mails sent over a private server Clinton used when she was secretary of state, as well as an intense media focus on her response to the controversy,” the Post's Karen Tumulty wrote. “The episode has raised questions about her judgment and revived memories of the scandals that plagued the presidency of her husband, Bill Clinton, in the 1990s.”

“We have underestimated how much the electorate is suffering from Bush/Clinton fatigue.”
Ken Goldstein

The Post poll is the latest in a series showing an erosion of support for Clinton and highlights the front-runner's problems with Democratic women. In just eight weeks, Clinton has lost 29 percent support from Democratic-leaning female voters, according to the survey.

Charting Clinton's tumbling poll numbers by gender, age, or income group is easily enough done. The question remains whether the the e-mail story is the root cause or a symptom of larger issues facing her candidacy.

more...

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-09-15/what-s-behind-hillary-clinton-s-drop-in-the-polls-

[Fred Sanders]

1. Easy question! Advertising. (see Trump for similar results where the advertising is positive)

There is a reason billions are spent on hamburger advertising and political advertising and it is the same reason.

[Warren Stupidity]

9. So your claim is that sanders has outspent clinton

on media buys?

[MineralMan]

2. Biden. That's what's behind the change.

If he doesn't run, Clinton will get a big boost in polling.

[Fawke Em]

7. Nope.

Biden wasn't in this poll and Bernie still bests her.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2015/08/ppps-new-new-hampshire-poll-finds-donald-trump-in-the-strongest-position-of-any-poll-weve-done-anywhere-since-he-entered-the.html

There's been a big shift on the Democratic side since April as well. Bernie Sanders now leads the field in the state with 42% to 35% for Hillary Clinton, 6% for Jim Webb, 4% for Martin O'Malley, 2% for Lincoln Chafee, and 1% for Lawrence Lessig.

Nor in this one: http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/polls/nbc-marist-22685

Lincoln Chafee (D) 1%
Hillary Clinton (D) 38%
Martin O'Malley (D) 2%
Bernie Sanders (D) 49%
Jim Webb (D) 1%
Undecided 8%

[HassleCat]

3. Just the normal narrowing of the gap

When Clinton started, she was the only game in town. As soon as Sanders and O'Malley go in, they started attracting interest. It's just not possible that everyone would support just one candidate, even a powerhouse like Hillary Clinton. Her support is waning in the places I would expect it to wane, and holding where I expect it would hold. Her poll numbers are sliding, not "tumbling."

[99Forever]

4. Most people don't trust her.

With good reason.

[SouthernProgressive]

5. 1) Not one single person thought she was going to stay over 60%

2) Every politician in this world would love to be in her current position. Every one. Well, unless there is someone out there enjoying even more than two times the polling of their next closest competitor who hasn't even entered the race.
3) She will go up in the polls in no way. Only down. It is what happens when one starts the campaign off at over 65%.

[RichVRichV]

10. That's most of it.

I remember when Bernie first got in and people were touting her 85% among Democrats polled.

That wasn't a blessing, it was a curse. She could fall to 55%, still have enough votes to win and all people will talk about is how much she is falling.

In reality that 85% she started at was artificial. She was the only known candidate running. It was destined to fall as more candidates became known.

Now we're getting more to where the polls really are. Now she has to earn the nomination just like the rest.

[magical thyme]

6. for me, it started with Clinton fatigue. I don't want a monarchy. No more Buhes, no more Clintons.

The came the stonewalling over private email server, then the string of "is is" explanations, then the mishandling of top secret classified information, then the sarcasm.

Anybody who doesn't think their SOS email might be 1. hackable and in need of high security and 2. a prime target for anti-US government hackers, is not qualified for high office, imo.

A $4M ad campaign in NH, followed by an immediate 10% drop in her polls in NH, should tell her something.

[BeyondGeography]

8. "Hillary: Live With It"

Axelrod got off a good one there.

[hifiguy]

11. There's a lengthy list.

The extraordinary arrogance and presumption flowing from her all too obvious sense of entitlement to the nomination.

Right wing positions on war/peace, fracking, TPP, TISA, private prisons, the drug war, reinstating Glass-Steagall. Refusing to say anything about the Keystone pipeline "until she's elected." Remember Nixon's "secret plan" to end the Vietnam War?

Buddying around with human sewage like War Criminal Kissinger, Lloyd Blankfein and Rupert Murdoch.

Being so deep in the pockets of the bank$ter$ and the MIC that she needs a fireman's ladder to even peek out.

Tone-deaf campaigning.

Clinton fatigue, including the immense damage Bill's "accomplishments" (NAFTA, welfare "reform," banking "reform," and the Telecom Act, among other things) did to the country.

Complete lack of any core principal save self-advancement.

For starters.

[Avalux]

12. Hillary Clinton has been in the public spotlight for decades.

Along with her famous name recognition comes a perception that reflects the cumulative of her public persona (true or not). It's incredibly difficult to 'reinvent' oneself with all of that history, especially if it contradicts that perception.

[restorefreedom]

13. hillary clinton. nt

[Eriteo]

14. The answer is easy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brittany-l-stalsburg-phd/hillary-clintons-poll-num_b_8066832.html

[MisterP]

15. like asking why the producers were horrified when the finally were allowed to see "Heaven's Gate"