Whether it was due to sheer panic or simple irony, during Wednesday's edition of New Day -- the early-morning program on the Cable News Network -- co-hosts Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota expressed great concern regarding Hillary Clinton's front-runner status in the early primary states of Iowa, Colorado and Virginia, according to a new survey conducted by Quinnipiac University.
“Hot off the presses,” Camerota began the segment discussing a poll that revealed “some very interesting findings,” including results that indicate “Hillary Clinton facing major challenges against her Republican opponents in some very key primary states.”
She stated that Clinton's favorability match-ups “were not looking good.”
For example, in Iowa, the Democratic candidate is losing to: Florida Sen. Marco Rubio by a margin of 44 to 36 percent; former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush 42 percent to 36 percent; and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker 45 to 37 percent.
Camerota then turned to CNN's senior political reporter, Nia-Malika Henderson, and asked her: “How do you explain what's going on here?”
Henderson replied:
If you look into those numbers, and I think they just came out at about 6 a.m., she's doing terribly in terms of people believing she is honest and trustworthy, and she also has low marks in people believing she cares about their issues, and so, this has been a problem, I think, ongoing for her.
You talk to folks in the campaign, and they say, 'Well, the campaign hasn't really started yet,' and 'Other numbers will start to take on water as well when the campaign heats up, and as they face a barrage of negative ads.'
“But my goodness,” she continued, “this is certainly a turn of events for her in which we've seen, I think, a steady slide in terms of her poll numbers.”
“They have believed all along that they don't really have to engage with the press in a very public way;” Henderson added.
“They don't have to give the kind of interviews consistently that they gave to (CNN reporter) Brianna Keiler, but at some point, they said they want to change things around, get out there a bit more, and these polls certainly kind of send out a kind of warning signal,” she concluded
Cuomo then noted that after Clinton gave that interview, her “trustworthy numbers didn't change in a meaningful way.”
He then asked Jeff Zeleny, CNN's senior Washington correspondent: “What do you think of the fact that trustworthiness looms large for Hillary Clinton, and that is the exact strength that a candidate named (vice president Joe) Biden would have?”
“It's really interesting,” Zeleny responded. “I mean, this is a place where she campaigned the most -- Iowa, of course -- she has an apparatus there.”
He continued: “You know, they're reaching out to activists and things, and voters still have these trust and credibility questions, so certainly, it leaves open the possibility” for another Democratic candidate to win the nomination.
“You have (socialistic candidate) Bernie Sanders on one side,” Zeleny asserted, stating that “a lot of liberals really like what he's saying, but there is still sort of this hungering out there for someone else.”
“You know, Chris, we still do not think, have no reason to believe that Joe Biden or any other Democrat is gong to ride to the rescue here,” he continued.
“It is likely going to be the field as we have it right now,” Zeleny said, “but these trust and credibility numbers are not automatic yet, but troubling for the Clinton campaign … .”
“And consistent,” Cuomo interjected.
“And consistent,” Zeleny repeated, “and actually, this poll is really interesting. It spans about 11 or 12 days, which usually in polling is not a good thing because so many things happen.
“But in this case, I think it's really instructive because it really expands over a wide period of time, and it shows that things just aren't changing no matter what she's doing here, so this is going to be an issue that she wrestles with,” he concluded.
Hillary Clinton “has lost ground in the horse race and on key questions about her honesty and leadership," wrote Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. "On being a strong leader, a key metric in presidential campaigns, she has dropped four to 10 points depending on the state, and she is barely above 50 percent in each of the three states."
However, the poll the anchors referred to also had bad news for Donald Trump, whom Cuomo stated “was punched in the nose” by the survey results.
“Perhaps the biggest loser ... is Donald Trump, who has negative favorability ratings of almost 2-1 in each state,” the poll found.
The survey was conducted between July 9 to 20, and had a margin of error of 2.8 percent points.
