A feature of modern presidential politics is a grim one: Voters are generally asked to choose between two candidates they might not like very much. …
As it turns out, while people who liked Trump and didn’t like Clinton voted heavily for Trump (as you’d expect), the current president also had an edge among people who disliked both him and Clinton. He won those voters by 17 points nationally — and by margins in the closest states that were likely enough to hand him the electoral college victory he needed. …
One question coming into 2020 was whether Clinton’s relative unpopularity was a function specifically of her candidacy or whether the Democrats could avoid numbers like those above simply because they’d have a better-liked candidate. We learned this week that they probably wouldn’t: Two new polls show favorability numbers for leading Democrats at or near where Trump’s are right now. CONT.
Philip Bump, Washington Post