Over the weekend, Hillary Clinton fainted while leaving the 9-11 memorial ceremonies. The video of her collapse is all over the place. The collapse also led to her campaign admitting that Hillary had been diagnosed with pneumonia a few days earlier, a fact which Hillary and her people covered up and kept from the public. Of course, once Hillary collapsed and video emerged showing that collapse, there was no way that the diagnosis could be kept secret anymore. Then Bill and Hillary came forward with "explanations" of how she had experienced fainting spells in the past from "dehydration". Bill said they happened frequently, then he changed that to rarely, and Hillary ultimately told CNN she couldn't recall how often such spells occurred. We were back to cover up as usual.
The question today, however, is has this health scare and the cover up that went with it affected the perceptions of the voters? The initial answer seems to be YES.
To dive deeper into this subject, let's use the LA Times tracking poll. This poll uses some strange methodology which undermine the results, but the trend of those results are not questionable. What we have seen is that Hillary went from leading in the poll over the weekend to being down by nearly 5% today. That's the sort of shift in a tracking poll that one almost never sees. Remember that today's lead for Trump is an average of the results for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and yesterday. Moving the results as quickly as is happening requires major movements in the daily results. If you look at the individual components of the poll, there is also some clear information to explain the movement. Hillary's support among young voters (under 35) has cratered. Trump leads with this group for the first time. Hillary's support among higher income voters (about $75K per year) has also tanked. The wealthy have been generally supporting Clinton as well, but Trump is now leading with this group. Finally, even black voters shifted away from Clinton. Trump is up to over 17% of the black vote. That may not sound like much, but before all this Trump was at something like 5%.
Now these numbers could all be short lived. Maybe once Hillary returns to the campaign trail the health issues will diminish and her support will pop back up. I doubt it, however. I think that more important than the health issues is the dishonesty of trying to hide the pneumonia diagnosis from the public. Hillary already suffered from being perceived as completely dishonest by roughly two-thirds of the voters. Having another instance of a high profile lie come from the Clinton campaign puts the issue back front and center. Anyone who was prepared to overlook Hillary's dishonesty is now faced with the reality that she will lie about anything. It is this dishonesty, I believe, that has tanked Clinton's support among young voters.
The question today, however, is has this health scare and the cover up that went with it affected the perceptions of the voters? The initial answer seems to be YES.
To dive deeper into this subject, let's use the LA Times tracking poll. This poll uses some strange methodology which undermine the results, but the trend of those results are not questionable. What we have seen is that Hillary went from leading in the poll over the weekend to being down by nearly 5% today. That's the sort of shift in a tracking poll that one almost never sees. Remember that today's lead for Trump is an average of the results for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and yesterday. Moving the results as quickly as is happening requires major movements in the daily results. If you look at the individual components of the poll, there is also some clear information to explain the movement. Hillary's support among young voters (under 35) has cratered. Trump leads with this group for the first time. Hillary's support among higher income voters (about $75K per year) has also tanked. The wealthy have been generally supporting Clinton as well, but Trump is now leading with this group. Finally, even black voters shifted away from Clinton. Trump is up to over 17% of the black vote. That may not sound like much, but before all this Trump was at something like 5%.
Now these numbers could all be short lived. Maybe once Hillary returns to the campaign trail the health issues will diminish and her support will pop back up. I doubt it, however. I think that more important than the health issues is the dishonesty of trying to hide the pneumonia diagnosis from the public. Hillary already suffered from being perceived as completely dishonest by roughly two-thirds of the voters. Having another instance of a high profile lie come from the Clinton campaign puts the issue back front and center. Anyone who was prepared to overlook Hillary's dishonesty is now faced with the reality that she will lie about anything. It is this dishonesty, I believe, that has tanked Clinton's support among young voters.
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