{"id":7519,"date":"2016-04-12T08:02:40","date_gmt":"2016-04-12T15:02:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/poll-on-issues-clinton-has-edge-over-trump\/"},"modified":"2016-04-12T08:02:40","modified_gmt":"2016-04-12T15:02:40","slug":"poll-on-issues-clinton-has-edge-over-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/poll-on-issues-clinton-has-edge-over-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"Poll: On issues, Clinton has edge over Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON<\/strong> \u2014 In an early general election warning for Donald Trump, Americans say they trust Democrat Hillary Clinton over the Republican businessman on a range of issues, including immigration, health care and nominating Supreme Court justices.<\/p>\n

Even when asked which of the two candidates would be best at \u201cmaking American great\u201d \u2014 the central promise of Trump\u2019s campaign \u2014 Americans are slightly more likely to side with Clinton, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll.<\/p>\n

The survey does reveal some potential trouble spots for Clinton. Trump is nearly even with her on whom Americans trust to handle the economy, which voters consistently rank as one of the top issues facing the country. Clinton is trusted more on the economy by 38 percent of Americans, while 35 percent side with Trump.<\/p>\n

And despite Americans\u2019 overall preference for Clinton on a host of issues, just 20 percent say she represents their own views very well on matters they care about, while 23 percent say somewhat well.<\/p>\n

But as with most issues addressed in the AP-GfK poll, the numbers for Trump are even worse: Just 15 percent of Americans say he represents their views very well and 14 percent say somewhat well.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s support with registered Republican voters is also soft on some issues, with less than 50 percent saying they trust him over Clinton on working with Congress or handling the U.S. image abroad. About a quarter of Republicans say they trust neither candidate on either of those issues.<\/p>\n

Those figures underscore the work the real estate mogul must do to shore up support within his own party if he\u2019s the nominee.<\/p>\n

Greg Freeman, an independent who leans Republican, said he would \u201cabsolutely not\u201d trust Trump to handle major issues facing the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he would have the U.S. in wars at the drop of a hat. He would make the international community angry at the United States,\u201d said Freeman, a 41-year-old from Walhalla, South Carolina. \u201cHe has a lot of comments on issues, but he has no solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Clinton and Trump are the favorites to face off in the fall campaign, obstacles remain, particularly for the Republican billionaire. He\u2019s leading in the delegate count, but needs to perform better in the upcoming final primaries in order to reach the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination. If he fails to hit that number, the GOP contest will be decided at the party\u2019s convention in July \u2014 and it\u2019s unclear whether Trump\u2019s slim campaign operation is prepared for that complex challenge.<\/p>\n

Clinton has yet to shake Democratic challenger Bernie Sanders, a Vermont senator who has energized young voters with his calls for breaking up Wall Street banks and making tuition free at public colleges and universities.<\/p>\n

While Sanders faces tough odds of overtaking Clinton, who has a commanding lead in delegates, his continued presence in the race has rankled the former secretary of state and prevented her from fully turning her attention toward the general election.<\/p>\n

Still, Clinton has been starting to draw a contrast with her potential Republican opponents, namely Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, his closest rival.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really looking forward to debating either Donald Trump or Ted Cruz,\u201d Clinton said Friday. \u201cMr. Trump, tell me again about how you\u2019re going to build this wall and make the Mexicans pay for it. Tell me again why you think it\u2019s a good idea for Japan and South Korea to develop nuclear weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s campaign appears well-aware of the need to bolster the businessman\u2019s policy credentials. He\u2019s recently expanded on his foreign policy views, including questioning U.S. participation in the NATO military alliance and suggesting some Asian nations may need nuclear weapons. Campaign officials have also said Trump plans to give a series of policy speeches in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

Clinton\u2019s edge over Trump on the issues spans foreign and domestic policy.<\/p>\n

She holds a significant advantage on handling immigration, health care, the U.S. image abroad, filling Supreme Court vacancies, international trade and working with Congress. Her biggest advantage is on handling gender equality issues, with 55 percent of Americans trusting her and just 12 percent backing Trump.<\/p>\n

Clinton has a slimmer lead over Trump on which candidate is trusted to protect the country, with 37 percent backing the Democrat and 31 percent backing the Republican. The margin is similar when Americans were asked who they trusted to handle the threat posed by the Islamic State group.<\/p>\n

Much of Trump\u2019s appeal with voters has rested on his broad pledge to \u201cmake America great again.\u201d But when asked which candidate they trusted more to make the country great, 33 percent of Americans picked Clinton and 28 percent backed Trump.<\/p>\n

Thirty percent said they didn\u2019t trust either candidate to make that happen.<\/p>\n

\n

The AP-GfK Poll of 1,076 adults was conducted online March 31-April 4, using a sample drawn from GfK\u2019s probability-based KnowledgePanel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 In an early general election warning for Donald Trump, Americans say they trust Democrat Hillary Clinton over the Republican businessman on a range of issues, including immigration, health<\/a> care and nominating Supreme Court justices. Even when asked which of the two candidates would be best at \u201cmaking American great\u201d \u2014 the central promise […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":7520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-7519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7519"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=7519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}