Pollsters Think Presidential Race Too Close to Call
But even with the election just a month away, top pollsters such as Peter Hart and Neil Newhouse are reluctant to pick the winner.
While polls are favoring Democrat Hillary Clinton, they say the race is so close that the unpredictability of Republican Donald Trump and a lack of enthusiasm for Clinton could change the numbers very quickly in the final weeks.
Democratic pollster Hart and Republican pollster Newhouse were featured speakers at an Oct. 3 government advocacy lunch at American Trucking Associations' 2016 Management Conference & Exhibition here.
Both say there has never been a presidential race like this one. Polls show that the voters aren’t fond of either Trump or Clinton and have grown weary of the lack of civility displayed by the nominees.
“This year has been one of the lowest of the low campaigns,” said Hart, of Hart Research Associates, and who has worked with candidates ranging from Hubert Humphrey to Bill Clinton. “Instead of people feeling positive about the campaign, everybody is holding their nose, and they’re negative.”
“The fact is that Donald Trump has been such a difficult candidate for the Republicans to be able to accept,” Hart said.
“In our latest NBC poll, we had Hillary Clinton up by five points,” Hart said.
Newhouse, who is co-founder of Public Opinion Strategies and was lead pollster for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, did not dispute Trump’s controversial nature.
“It’s not a popularity contest,” he said of the presidential election. “It’s a nose-holder election. People are holding their noses because they don’t want to vote for either of these candidates.”
In one of his firm’s focus groups, one woman said she thought both Trump and Clinton are liars, but that Clinton seems to get “caught a lot.”
“I like to say Hillary Clinton is the single-most unpopular nominee of a major party in the history of polling,” Newhouse said. “Oh yeah, except for Donald Trump.”
Hart said the thing to watch is how big the undecided voters go for the Libertarian and Green Party candidates. The undecided mostly seem to think the country is losing ground and that the election is about change, which would normally favor Republicans, Hart said.
“Donald Trump has the best chance of being elected if that vote goes up to 15% or 16%,” Hart said. “Because at that stage of the game it means that you can win this election with 42% or 43% of the vote.”
What is most important in viewing the race is the fact that the majority of Trump voters are doing so not because they like him, but because they don’t want Clinton to be president, according to Hart.
But the heart of Trump’s strength is due to the fact that many of his supporters believe he would do a better job strengthening the economy and boosting their real income, Hart said.
Hart said Clinton registers stronger with voters over any international issues and being commander-in-chief and having control of nuclear weapons.
“She becomes the safer candidate, but people see her as cold, but competent," Hart said. “As far as Donald Trump, they see him as being hot-headed and who likely is to make big mistakes and go off the rails. ...The sense is no matter how you look at them they’re flawed candidates in their own way.”
Newhouse said voters are unhappy with the way things are going.
“Americans want change, and that’s the underpinning of the appeal of Donald Trump,” Newhouse said. “He is not business as usual.”
Americans are most concerned about a huge drop in their net worth and losing faith in their institutions, according to Newhouse.
“There is a sense that among Republican voters they elected Republicans to go to Congress, take out Obamacare, fight against Obama and they don’t think they’ve been successful,” he added. “So there is an anger in the base against the establishment.”
Newhouse said that his firm’s focus groups have included “Wal-Mart moms” in Columbus, Ohio, some of whom have described the election as “nauseating.”
“One woman said it’s like choosing which arm to cut off,” Newhouse said. Another said electing Trump would be like sending a painter to do a doctor’s job, he added.
