Hillary Clinton's Edge Over Donald Trump
A new poll shows a large share of Americans place faith in the presumptive Democratic nominee to achieve national objectives.
More Americans believe Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump is likely to achieve several key national objectives, the latest Allstate/Atlantic Media Heartland Monitor Poll has found.
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When asked which candidate would work effectively with other countries, with Congress, and with state and local governments to achieve their objectives, more than 50 percent of respondents favored Clinton over Trump. They also pegged Clinton as more likely to “bring the country together” and to “convince the two parties to cooperate more than they have in recent years” by margins of more than 15 percentage points. In promoting partnerships between the public and private sectors, however, Clinton led by only three points.
As the attached chart demonstrates, though, Americans sorted along consistent lines when assessing the two candidate on these tests. Minorities overwhelmingly favored Clinton to accomplish these goals, and white voters who hold at least a four-year college degree also mostly preferred her. White voters without a college degree, on the other hand, consistently sided with Trump.
White voters without college degrees favored Trump in every category tested except for one in which he tied with Clinton: “working effectively with other countries.” In four of the six categories, white voters without college degrees favored Trump by a margin of at least 15 percentage points, including “convincing the two parties to cooperate more than they have in recent years” and “bringing the country together.”
College-educated whites, however, were more confident in Clinton’s abilities than Trump’s in every category tested except one—“promoting effective partnerships between the public and private sector.” (Even there, Clinton trailed by just one percentage point.) And in five of the six categories, they put more faith in Clinton than in Trump by at least 15 points. Nonwhites overwhelmingly supported Clinton in achieving these objectives, giving her a lead of 45 points or more in every category tested—and of more than 50 points in five of the six.
The gap between the Trump-leaning blue-collar whites and the white-collar whites and minorities who lean toward Clinton was substantial throughout, but may be most significant on two questions. Asked which candidate could “work effectively with other candidates around the world” college-educated whites preferred Clinton by exactly two-to-one and minorities by nearly six-to-one while non-college whites split evenly. And when asked which candidate could “bring the country together,” minorities preferred Clinton by 57 percentage points and college whites tapped her by 15 points. But blue-collar whites picked Trump by an equal 15 percentage point margin.
The latest Allstate/Atlantic Media Heartland Monitor Poll is the 26th in a series examining how Americans are experiencing the changing economy. This poll examines the public’s attitudes toward fundamental trends reshaping American culture and the economy and their views about which institutions are best positioned to respond to them. It surveyed 1,000 adults by landline and cell phones from June 19 to June 24, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The survey was supervised by Ed Reilly and Megan McNally of FTI Consulting’s strategic communications practice.