On Wednesday, ABC’s Good Morning America and World News Tonight neglected to cover the results of the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll that found Hillary Clinton’s personal ratings are still tumbling along with President Barack Obama’s approval rating which a Post article described as being “well behind historic norms.”
Concerning Clinton, the new poll that was released on Tuesday showed that Clinton’s honesty and trustworthiness rating has fallen five points in the last two months and 12 points over the course of the past year while Americans widely disapprove of her handling of the deadly terror attack in Benghazi and her e-mail and family foundation scandals.
The poll also found Clinton to have a net unfavorability of 49 percent versus 45 percent net favorability rating with 52 percent of respondents stating that they didn’t find Clinton to be “honest and trustworthy” compared to only 41 percent who agreed.
According to an ABCNews.com story on the poll’s findings:
As noted, Clinton’s lost 12 points in being seen as honest and trustworthy since June 2014. That’s occurred disproportionately in three groups: college graduates (from 57 percent to 34 percent), white Catholics (from 50 to 27 percent; they’re a sometimes swing-voting group) and urban dwellers (from 67 to 47 percent).
Clinton's more likely to be seen as trustworthy in some of her core groups, including more women than men (49 vs. 32 percent) and more non-whites than whites (59 vs. 32 percent). Seven in 10 Democrats see her as trustworthy vs. 36 percent of independents and 14 percent of Republicans. But in each of these groups, her ratings have declined, at least numerically.
Notably, even among those who intend to vote for her in the Democratic primary, just 78 percent see Clinton as trustworthy.
As for the President, his approval rating took a hit as it fell to 45 percent (49 percent disapproving) after having stood at 50 percent in January and 47 percent in March. An article in The Washington Post explained how Obama’s approval is behind historical averages in polling that goes back to the 1930s:
Historically, Obama's standing is below the 56 percent average of presidential approval ratings in Washington Post/ABC News and Gallup polls dating back to the 1930s. His 45 percent mark is also just below average for other two-term presidents at this stage. He is significantly higher than George W. Bush (35 percent) and Harry Truman (24 percent) but lower than Ronald Reagan (52 percent), Bill Clinton (59 percent) and Dwight Eisenhower (64 percent) at this point in their presidencies.
A bigger challenge for Obama's personal legacy is the sheer intensity of disapproval, which was also seen under George W. Bush. Nearly four in 10 (38 percent) strongly disapprove of his job performance, while 22 percent strongly approve.
On foreign policy, the picture is even worse as 55 percent disapprove of Obama’s foreign policy with only 31 approving following major gains made in Iraq and Syria by ISIS. The same Washington Post article noted that this represents a “a flip from September, when 50 approved of Obama’s handing of the issue after he ordered airstrikes to combat insurgents.”
Instead of covering this poll, Good Morning America featured a performance from the singer Tinashe in a segment lasting three minutes and 51 seconds while World News Tonight covered a viral video of a young Detroit Tigers fan being brought to tears after catching a grand slam ball during a recent game that was hit by a member of the opposing Oakland Athletics.
