Monday, November 23, 2015

Polls: US Hates Media, Likes Trump, Rejects Obama

There are a ton of new polls out today and the results of each are sometimes surprising, certainly enticing and always revealing:

  • A Pew poll has found that that Americans' trust in the media is at an all time low with nearly two out of every three people (65%) believing the media have a "negative effect" on the country. Nearly the same amount (67%) say the federal government has a negative effect.
  • A Washington Post poll finds that Donald Trump continues to hold a commanding lead over Ben Carson, his nearest rival for the GOP presidential nomination. Trump scores 32% with Carson behind at 22% with Marco Rubio at 11% followed by Ted Cruz at 8%. Both Rubio and Cruze have inched slightly higher since the same poll last month. The poll also found Republicans to be far more energized than Democrats and far more likely to vote in their party's presidential primary.
  • More Republicans polled (38%) believe Trump has the best chance of winning the general election next November. 
  • In the same Washington Post poll by overwhelming margins Republicans picked Trump as the candidate best equipped to deal with four of five major issues identified (economy, terrorism, immigration and tax policy). Trump ran behind Carson on health care.
  • In a poll conducted jointly by Democrat firm Anderson Robbins and Republican firm Shaw & Co. President Obama's job approval rating has fallen to 40%. A majority (54%) disapprove of the way Obama is currently doing his job. This is Obama's lowest number since a year ago at this time. That low was followed by a huge loss in the midterm elections.
  • The Anderson/Shaw poll also found terrorism to be the top issue on the minds of Americans, now edging out jobs and the economy.
  • The same poll found Trump to be the clear favorite of GOP voters over Carson (28% to 18%) with Rubio and Cruz both gaining and tied at 14%.
  • Rubio would do best in a race against Hillary Clinton next November defeating her by 50% to 42%. But Trump, Cruz, Carson, Rubio and Christie would defeat Clinton as well. Christie would defeat her by three points, Cruz by four points, Carson by five points, Trump by five points and Bush by six points. 
  • 63% of those surveyed think the war on terror is going badly under Obama. Of those, more than half (33%) think it's going very badly. Also, nearly two our of every three Americans (65%) think Obama has not been aggressive enough in fighting terror. 
  • Two-thirds of those surveyed in the Anderson/Shaw poll (67%) are opposed to Obama's plan to take in an additional 10,000 Syrian refugees. And, a clear majority (56%) think it's wrong for Obama and Clinton and other Democrats to refuse to use the words "radical Islam" while 73% oppose closing the Guantanamo Bay detention center. 
  • In a new Reuters poll, 58% of Americans now say they “don’t identify with what America has become.” While Republicans and Independents are the most likely to agree with this statement, what's really revealing is that even 45% of Democrats share this feeling. Furthermore, more than half of Americans, 53%, say they “feel like a stranger” in their own country.

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