Polling after the Orlando shooting shows marked increases in support for gun control and concern about terrorism. Donald Trump’s favorability ratings are actually up from a year ago, but Hillary Clinton's are more likely to improve. And Trump isn’t talking about his polling numbers for a reason. This is HuffPollster for Friday, June 17, 2016.
A MAJORITY OF AMERICANS SUPPORT GUN CONTROL AFTER ORLANDO - HuffPollster: "Support for stricter gun laws is up sharply after America’s most deadly mass shooting to date, a new HuffPost/YouGov survey finds….A 55 percent majority of respondents now say they support stricter guns laws, up 7 points since earlier this month. The share of Americans who believe that gun violence is a very serious problem rose by a similar margin, while the percentage who think that passing gun control is possible and that shootings are preventable saw smaller upticks….Specific gun control policies are even more popular. Eighty-six percent of Americans polled support closing the so-called terror gap by passing a law preventing individuals on the terror watch list from purchasing firearms. Sixty-two percent back a ban on the sale of assault rifles….There’s no guarantee that fears raised by the Orlando shooting will even last until the election. Far from reflecting an unprecedented sea change, the newest poll shows public opinion returning to about where it was after last year’s shooting in San Bernardino, California." [HuffPost]
More now rank terrorism as the most important issue - John Lapinski and Stephanie Psyllos: "After 49 people were killed at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando on June 12, a new poll finds that one in four — 24 percent — Americans ranked terrorism as the issue that matters most to them right now. Those who identify as Republicans were the group most likely to list terrorism as the most important issue — 35 percent ranked it first. That is nearly double the number of Democrats who rank terrorism as the most important issue. That number doubled from 12 percent who ranked terrorism as the most important issue to them in last week's NBC News|SurveyMonkey Weekly Election Tracking poll. The poll also shows that half of Americans — 51 percent — are worried that they or someone in their family might become a victim of a terrorist attack, while 48 percent said they are not worried. And just under six in 10 said the U.S. government is not doing well in reducing the threat of terrorism, up from 53 percent who said the government was not doing well following the Paris attacks in November." [NBC]
Democrats and Republicans interpret the Orlando shooting differently - Jeffrey Jones: "Republicans and Democrats have starkly different interpretations of what the recent mass shooting at an Orlando nightclub represents. While 79% of Republicans view it primarily as an act of Islamic terrorism, the majority of Democrats, 60%, see it as an act of domestic gun violence. Given Republicans' more lopsided views, Americans as a whole tilt toward describing it as a terrorist act…. Democrats' interpretation of the Orlando shooting may be influenced by Democratic leaders' calls for stricter gun laws in recent days. This was exemplified by a Democratic-led filibuster on the Senate floor Wednesday and Thursday, which ended after Republican leaders agreed to take up proposals on background checks and steps to prevent terrorists from obtaining guns. Trump's statements on the event may be contributing to Republicans' views of the Orlando incident as an act of Islamic terrorism, but Republicans' tendency to define it as terrorism may also stem from their greater concern about terrorism in general. Independents are evenly divided as to whether the Orlando shooting was an act of Islamic terrorism (44%) or domestic gun violence (42%)." [Gallup]
TRUMP’S FAVORABILITY IS UP FROM WHEN HE FIRST ENTERED THE RACE - Philip Bump: "[Hillary] Clinton's numbers, generally about even when she started, have dropped much more than [Donald] Trump's. But Trump's remain much lower than Clinton's. In 67 polls since last July in which the pollster asked about the favorability of both candidates, Clinton's net favorability was higher than Trump's in 65 of them….By our most recent survey, released this week, Clinton's favorability with Democrats had grown a bit, but her numbers with independents had sunk. Overall, she went from minus-7 to minus-13 net favorability in our polling. Compare that with Trump. Trump had fairly weak numbers with Republicans at the outset, but they improved dramatically over the course of his campaign. He had bad numbers among Democrats — but those got much worse. Among independents, he stayed about flat, but improved slightly on favorability. Overall, he went from minus-63 to minus-38. He went up. Why? Because he didn't really have anywhere else to go. Republicans view him better than they used to, but he's still not super-popular with them. He changed some minds — enough to win the Republican Party's nomination — but not enough, it seems, to persuade most Americans to look at him positively." [WashPost]
Clinton might have a better chance of improving her image than Trump does - Steven Shepard: "Recent polls have showed Trump’s unfavorable rating spiking again, after a brief improvement last month. That’s also coincided with a slide in national horse-race polls, which now unanimously show Hillary Clinton leading the presumptive Republican nominee. Clinton is also more unpopular than past nominees, but her negatives are neither as wide nor as deep as the broadly detested Trump. Trump is setting modern records for political toxicity — at least for a major-party candidate this far out from an election. Seventy percent of Americans surveyed in an ABC News/Washington Post poll out this week had an unfavorable opinion of Trump, up 10 points over the past month….Voters with a strongly unfavorable opinion are 'obviously more difficult to move than people who are undecided or just unfavorable,' said Quinnipiac University pollster Peter Brown….Clinton is seeking to move those numbers in her direction." [Politico]
TRUMP IS AMAZINGLY QUIET ABOUT HIS POLL NUMBERS LATELY - David Lauter: "Donald Trump used to love nothing more than boasting about his poll numbers: His recitation of them was a staple of his campaign speeches.There's little to boast about now. A new Washington Post/ABC News survey finds the share of Americans with a negative view of Trump rose sharply since last month. Half of Americans polled by CBS News disapproved of his response to the Orlando, Fla., shootings, and just one-quarter approved. His support has fallen below 40% in several new national polls of the November race. And a survey of a key Midwestern battleground state shows him trailing Hillary Clinton by 9 percentage points among likely voters. Now, one year to the day after he announced his campaign, Trump has a new line: denouncing 'phony polls.' The bad news for Trump probably reflects several developments over the last couple of weeks. Fellow Republicans reacted negatively to his criticism of the federal judge presiding over a lawsuit against Trump University, and Democratic voters have begun to coalesce behind Clinton now that she has clinched the party’s nomination." [LA Times]
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FRIDAY'S 'OUTLIERS' - Links to the best of news at the intersection of polling, politics and political data:
-PredictWise gives the Republicans just a 25 percent chance of winning the presidency in November. [PredictWise]
-Harry Enten thinks Hillary Clinton could move slightly to the left on issues without seriously endangering her chances of winning. [538]
-Academic research shows that inflammatory racial rhetoric might be becoming less taboo in the U.S. [WashPost]
-A majority of Americans say Congress is doing a poor or bad job. [Gallup]
-Americans are split on whether technology makes people smarter or dumber. [PBS]
-Betting markets say the odds are that the UK will stay in the European Union, but polls show an edge for Brexit. [The Parliament Magazine]