Only once in modern times, George Bush in 1988, has the same political party won three presidential elections in a row. This year, Republicans were poised to replace Barack Obama, after two terms, if they had just nominated a candidate who could attract enough women voters in battleground states to put them over the top.
Instead they nominated billionaire reality TV host, Donald Trump, who had never been vetted in a political campaign, and now dominates Hillary Clinton among only one voter demographic: White men without a college degree.
How bad is it for Republicans? According to today’s ABC election tracking poll:
- Clinton leads Trump nationally by twelve points, the widest margin of the campaign, 50 – 38 percent.
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Clinton leads Trump by 20 percentage points among women, 55 – 35 percent.
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Clinton has doubled her lead to 32 points, 62 – 30 percent, among college educated white women.
- Clinton leads by 79 points among African Americans, 82 – 3 percent.
- Clinton leads by 38 points among Hispanics, 63 – 25 percent.
- Clinton leads by 8 points among Independents, 45 to 37 percent.
- Clinton leads, for the first time, among men, 44 – 41 percent.
- Clinton leads by 16 points among white college educated voters, 52 – 36 percent.
- Trump leads by 31 points among white men without a college degree, 60 – 29 percent.
- Trump leads among white voters by four points, 47 – 43 percent (Mitt Romney lead this group by 20).
Trump’s support bottomed out in October after his response to a tape from 2005 where he is heard making lewd comments about women. Likely voters by a vast 69 – 24 percent margin disapprove of his response to questions about his treatment of women.
His recent claims that the election process in America is “rigged” have also hurt him. 59 percent of likely voters reject his suggestion that the election is rigged in Clinton’s favor, and more, 65 percent, disapprove of his refusal to say whether he’d accept a Clinton victory as legitimate.
REPUBLICANS IN DENIAL
A new Reuters poll finds 70 percent of Republicans believe Hillary Clinton can only win this election if it is somehow rigged. And half say they will not accept Clinton as their president.
This despite the reality that the states, and not the federal government, run presidential elections. And in most of the key battleground states, Republicans are in charge of overseeing and validating the results.
That is just a remarkable level of negativity headed into the final vote for president, and a sign of how difficult it will be for Clinton to unite the nation if she becomes president.