July 7, 2016

Hillary Clinton’s Poll Numbers Look Nearly Unbeatable

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Pew has another of its surveys out, this time a fairly generic presidential poll. They do this in June every four years, and they have a pretty good track record. Without further ado, here are the topline results:

Hillary Clinton is 9 points ahead of Donald Trump regardless of whether Gary Johnson is in the race. A subsequent question makes clear there’s very little wiggle room here: among voters who support a candidate, nearly all of them say their choice is firm. Bottom line: there are very few undecided voters—who will probably break pretty evenly anyway—and everyone else says their minds are solidly made up.

So does Trump have a chance? Sure—though it’s slipping away. Voters are pretty non-thrilled with their choices this year, which means that turnout could make an even bigger difference than usual. But running a ground game requires lots of money and great organization, both of which Trump lacks. At this point, then, it looks like Trump’s only real chance is some kind of dramatic external event that suddenly turns voters his way. But I’m no longer sure what that could be. Serious economic problems are unlikely over the next 17 weeks, and terrorist attacks don’t seem to help him in the polls. So what is there?

I’m not sure. But if you’re wondering why Trump hasn’t broken through against a candidate who obviously has plenty of weak spots, I think Pew provides the answer. Trump’s campaign is fundamentally based on appealing to people who think they’re getting a raw deal from a lousy economy. But views on the economy are actually pretty positive:

Overall economic optimism is back to where it was in 2008, before the Great Recession. That’s not very fertile soil for Trump’s campaign. Add to that his apparently inability to hold a coherent thought for more than a few minutes at a time, and it’s really hard to see a way for him to make up his current polling deficit.

POSTSCRIPT: Even Trump will probably get a post-convention bounce, but don’t let that fool you. Wait a couple of weeks and it will almost certainly go away.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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