American Public Dislikes Trump And Palin

One of the biggest surprises of this early campaign to nominate a Republican to run against President Obama next year has been the sudden emergence of Donald Trump as a viable candidate among Republicans. Once thought to be little more than a joke candidate, Trump has appealed to the teabagger element of the Republican Party by questioning the birthright citizenship of the president.

This appeal to "birtherism" has worked well for Trump. He has quickly shot up to become one of the leading Republican hopefuls. He has finished in the top three in all of the recent national polls -- usually in first place or tied for first. But it looks like the Republicans should be very careful about nominating Trump (or Palin for that matter).

It turns out that among the general public, both Donald Trump and Sarah Palin are very unpopular. A recent Gallup Poll (conducted April 20th through April 23rd of a random national sample of 1,013 adults) shows that significant majorities of the American people say they would not vote for either Trump or Palin -- majorities much larger than can be accounted for by the 4 point margin of error.

Only about a third of the respondents say they would/might vote for the two (35% for Trump and 34% for Palin). Meanwhile, a full 64% say they would definitely not vote for Trump and 65% say they would definitely not vote for Palin. This doesn't necessarily mean they couldn't get the Republican nomination since they both appeal to the teabaggers, and the teabaggers will have a large voice in the Republican primaries and probably also at the convention. But it does mean they would have a very hard time defeating the president if nominated.

Here is how the general public feels about the top four Republican candidates (and President Obama):

PRESIDENT OBAMA
would/might vote for...............54%
would not vote for...............46%

MITT ROMNEY
would/might vote for...............48%
would not vote for................45%

MIKE HUCKABEE
would/might vote for...............46%
would not vote for...............46%

DONALD TRUMP
would/might vote for...............35%
would not vote for...............64%

SARAH PALIN
would/might vote for...............34%
would not vote for...............65%

These large negative numbers for Trump and Palin would seem to preclude their nomination to run against the president. But I wouldn't count them out yet. Whether the Republican establishment likes it or not the teabaggers now control their party, and these teabagger voters have shown a propensity for voting for ideology over a candidate that has a better chance of winning. Remember, in the 2010 election they passed up candidates almost guaranteed to win in Nevada and Connecticut senate races to nominate Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell -- both of whom lost after running fringe right-wing campaigns.

And a majority of Republicans say they would/might vote for all four of the above candidates. Here is how Republicans answered the survey:

MITT ROMNEY
would/might vote for...............69%
would not vote for................26%

MIKE HUCKABEE
would/might vote for...............69%
would not vote for...............22%

SARAH PALIN
would/might vote for...............60%
would not vote for...............37%

DONALD TRUMP
would/might vote for...............52%
would not vote for...............46%

Of course the deciding factor will be in who shows up at the polls during the state primaries and caucuses. Candidates like Palin and Trump (and Bachmann and Santorum) might be better placed than some of us think, because the teabagger element is almost sure to vote. It remains to be seen if more moderate Republicans (if there still are many left in the party) will vote in as large a numbers as the teabaggers.