Trump May Be Terrible, But Few Regret Not Voting For Hillary

Donald Trump has given us numerous reasons to dislike and distrust him. His policies, such as the Republican health care plan, have turned out to be horrible for the bulk of his voters. I have seen multiple media and blog stories suggesting that many Trump voters regret voting for him. A new poll suggests that is not the case. An article in The Washington Post discusses a recent poll to determine if Trump voters regret their votes, and how they wish they had voted:

Our Mood of the Nation Poll from Penn State’s McCourtney Institute of Democracy provides answers. Conducted by YouGov, the poll tracks the mood of the public through traditional survey questions and numerous open-ended questions that allow citizens to express themselves in their own words. The poll’s methodology is described here.

Our Feb. 23-27 poll asked a nationally representative sample of 1,000 Americans to report on how they cast their vote in November. The results of these reports closely align with other national polls, with Hillary Clinton voters comprising 49 percent of the sample, Trump voters 46 percent, with 3 percent and 2 percent for minor-party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, respectively.

Who would vote differently?

On the next screen, we asked everyone, “Suppose you could go back in time and vote again in the November election. What would you do?”

Respondents were presented with the same choices — Trump, Clinton, Stein, Johnson, someone else, or not vote at all. Of the 339 poll participants who originally voted for Trump, only 12 (3½ percent) said they would do something different.

It will be interesting to see if this changes over time. It is one thing for Trump to propose policies which harm his base. It is a different matter for these voters to realize it. Perhaps this will change if more of Trump’s policies are enacted.

I find it interesting that not only do few Trump voters regret their votes, but that of the twelve people who say they would change their votes, only three said they would vote for Clinton while seven would vote for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson.

I wish we had similar data on those who voted for Stein or Johnson. Not surprisingly, I have seen many comments from Clinton supporters on social media suggesting that Stein and Johnson voters should regret their votes. However, while a few might exist, I have seen no evidence of any Stein or Johnson voters wishing they had for Clinton.

It is one thing to oppose Trump’s policies. It is a different matter to think that we would have been better off if a corrupt, socially conservative,  warmonger such as Clinton had won. There is at least some consolation following Trump’s election in seeing how quickly we have developed strong opposition to his policies. If Clinton had won, those on the left who are actively opposing Trump would be finding ways to excuse and defend Clinton’s actions and policies, as we frequently saw during the campaign. Those who say there has been no evidence of wrong doing by Clinton, despite all the evidence raised of corrupt and dishonest behavior on her part, are objecting to the corruption seen from Trump, making it far less such corruption would become institutionalized as it would have been if Clinton had been elected.

While large portions of the pro-Democratic media have shown an extraordinary amount of hypocrisy in accepting Clinton’s actions, there has been opposition to Trump from both the left and segments of the right. For example, even the pro-Republican Wall Street Journal is running an op-ed about Trump’s lack of credibility. The article both gave examples of the frequent falsehoods from Trump and noted the consequences:

If President Trump announces that North Korea launched a missile that landed within 100 miles of Hawaii, would most Americans believe him? Would the rest of the world? We’re not sure, which speaks to the damage that Mr. Trump is doing to his Presidency with his seemingly endless stream of exaggerations, evidence-free accusations, implausible denials and other falsehoods…

All of this continues the pattern from the campaign that Mr. Trump is his own worst political enemy. He survived his many false claims as a candidate because his core supporters treated it as mere hyperbole and his opponent was untrustworthy Hillary Clinton. But now he’s President, and he needs support beyond the Breitbart cheering section that will excuse anything. As he is learning with the health-care bill, Mr. Trump needs partners in his own party to pass his agenda. He also needs friends abroad who are willing to trust him when he asks for support, not least in a crisis.

This week should be dominated by the smooth political sailing for Mr. Trump’s Supreme Court nominee and the progress of health-care reform on Capitol Hill. These are historic events, and success will show he can deliver on his promises. But instead the week has been dominated by the news that he was repudiated by his own FBI director.

Two months into his Presidency, Gallup has Mr. Trump’s approval rating at 39%. No doubt Mr. Trump considers that fake news, but if he doesn’t show more respect for the truth most Americans may conclude he’s a fake President.

Assuming we survive his presidency, there are also long term political advantages to having Trump in the White House destroying the Republicans, as opposed to seeing Clinton destroy the Democratic brand. Getting rid of the Clintons gives the Democrats a chance to reform the party–which they may or may not take advantage of. If Clinton was elected, we would probably see a continuation of the trend for Democrats to lose in Congressional and state governments, with opposition to Clinton likely to give Republicans a super majority in the Senate and potentially control of enough state governments to enable them to rewrite the Constitution. Having Trump in the White House, as terrible as that is, at least means that the Democrats not only have a real shot at taking control of the House in 2018, but Stuart Rothenburg is writing today that Republican “gains probably won’t be anywhere near what they might have been with President Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office.”

2 Comments

  1. 1
    Brian says:

    Clinton's past came back to haunt her and I have to say the video of her laughing about Ghadaffi's murder, that was last straw stuff for me.  I don't believe he was the terrible person they make him out to be.   But, even if he was, it's not laughable that he died.  It made a huge statement about her character, and she is too far removed to see it.  She might as well have said " we killed a man and drug him through the streets, ha ha".

  2. 2
    Robert J Kolker says:

    This clearly proves that Hillary was a bad, bad candidate for the Democrats.  They should have run Bernie Sanders.  But Hillary's buddies at the DNC  saw to it that Bernie Sander's boat  was sunk.  

    A good part of the Democrat faithful who would never vote for trump,  clearly preferred Sanders,  particularly the younger Democrats.  Hillary is to blame for the Democrat loss.  Votes for Trump were mostly votes against Hillary.  

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