Half Of Voters Would Be ‘Embarrassed’ To Have Donald Trump As President, Poll Finds

According to a new Quinnipiac poll released on Tuesday, December 22, half of American voters said they would feel embarrassed to have billionaire real-estate mogul Donald Trump as president.

Donald Trump presently holds front-runner status in the race for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination.

The Quinnipiac University National poll conducted from December 16 to December 20 asked 1,140 voters via phone, “Would you feel proud to have Donald Trump as President, embarrassed to have Donald Trump as President, or wouldn’t you feel either of these ways?”

Responding to the question (see tables below) 23 percent of those surveyed said they would feel “proud,” 50 percent said they would feel “embarrassed,” while 24 percent said “neither.”

Of the total number of voters who responded, 44 percent of Republicans said they would feel “proud” while only 4 percent of Democrats said they would feel “proud.” Twenty percent of independents said they would feel “proud.”

When voters were asked the same question about the Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, 33 percent of respondents said they would feel “proud” while 35 percent said they would feel “embarrassed.” Twenty-nine percent said “neither.”

Analysts are struggling to explain how Trump continues to dominate the Republican polls when fifty percent of voters — including 20 percent of Republicans — said they would feel embarrassed to have him as president.

According to Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, “Half of American voters say they’d be embarrassed to have Donald Trump as their Commander-in-Chief and most Americans think he doesn’t have a good chance in November, but there he is still at the top of the Republican heap…”

It is noteworthy that in addition to the 20 percent of Republican voters who said they would be “embarrassed,” 32 percent also said “neither,” meaning that a total of 52 percent of Republicans refused to say they would feel “proud” to have Trump as president.

It is also noteworthy that a greater proportion of American voters — 33 percent — said they would feel proud of Clinton as president than said they would feel proud of Trump — 23 percent.

The poll also found that majority of the respondents who said they would feel embarrassed if Trump became president were women and young people, with six in 10 female voters saying they would feel “embarrassed” compared with four in 10 males.

Seventy-three percent of young voters aged 18-34 said they would feel “embarrassed” compared with 13 percent who said they would feel “proud.”

Forty-seven percent of independents said they would feel “embarrassed” if Trump became president.

Analysts noted the equally baffling fact of a sharp contrast in the results of the latest telephone poll and a poll conducted by a research firm called Morning Consult, which found that 38 percent of respondents who participated via a Web form said they supported Trump, compared with 32 percent who responded through a phone call.

According to the Atlantic, the results suggest, “A sizable percentage of poll respondents, though willing to punch a phone key to say they support Trump, are still too embarrassed to actually tell another human being.”

But some analysts have noted that Trump’s lead could be declining, pointing to the fact that the survey found that as the front-runner in the GOP presidential nomination race, he now leads Senator Ted Cruz by only four percent.

The Quinnipiac poll found that just six weeks before voting in the Iowa caucuses, 28 percent of Republicans said they would vote for Trump, while 24 percent said they would vote for Senator Ted Cruz.

Significantly, 63 percent of Republican voters who said they would vote for Trump said their minds were made up about voting for Trump. In comparison, only 36 percent of Republican voters who said they would vote for Cruz said their minds were made up,

Overall, about 58 percent of the total number of Republican voters who picked a candidate said they might change their minds. The results indicate that Trump’s front-runner status is relatively assured and that Cruz’s position is more vulnerable because he is at greater risk than Trump of losing support.

Sixty-one percent of Democrats said they would vote for the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton while 30 percent said they would vote for Senator Bernie Sanders. Only two percent said they would vote for Martin O’Malley.

The poll found that Clinton and Sanders would beat Trump in a hypothetical national election held at the time of the poll (December 16-20). Clinton beat Trump by seven points (47-40 percent) while Sanders beat Trump by 13 points (51 to 38 percent) despite trailing Clinton in the Democratic primary race.

Clinton tied with Cruz and beat Rubio by only a percentage point. Sanders lost by three points to Rubio and by one point to Cruz.

The results of the matchup are reflected in the fact that 59 percent of voters — including 36 percent of Republican voters — said that Hillary Clinton has a “good chance” of beating Trump. A majority of independents and Democrats believed that Clinton has a “good chance” of beating Trump.

Conversely, 41 percent of the total number of voters polled said Trump has a “good chance” of beating Clinton. The total includes 70 percent of Republican voters, 14 percent of Democratic voters, and 40 percent of independents.

“Hillary Clinton tops him [Trump]. Sen. Bernie Sanders hammers him and Sen. Ted Cruz is snapping at his heels,” Malloy added. “Can a candidate that half the American electorate thinks is an embarrassment win in November?”

The latest Quinnipiac polls were conducted between December 16 and 20 December with 1,140 registered voters participating — 508 GOP voters and 462 Democratic voters. The poll had an overall margin of error of +/- 2.9 percentage points.

[Photo By Charlie Neibergall/AP]