Party loyalists are starting to coalesce around Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as their likely presidential nominees, while independent voters continue to hold both party front-runners in almost equal disdain, according to the latest wave of data from the Reputation Institute’s 2016 presidential election RepTrak study.
As a Hillary Clinton nomination appears to be inevitable, the former First Lady is starting to grow on Democrats, who now view her as “friendly, honest, concerned, and charming,” in addition to “ambitious and reliable.”
In the previous RI survey taken three weeks ago, the only positive attributes Democrats associated with Clinton were “ambitious and reliable.”
For the first time since the study began in March, Clinton achieved a strong reputation score of 70.8. Her score increased 7 points since April, and 69 percent of Democrats now “strongly agree” that they will vote for her in November.
Trump’s reputation among Republicans has also improved — though far less dramatically. His reputation score bumped up from 48.9 to 52.9 within the last month, and 59 percent of Republicans “strongly agreed” that they would vote for him in the general election.