The likely showdown between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump could be a race between two most disliked candidates in decades.
A joint ABC News and Washington Post poll released on Monday rewards Trump with a 60 per cent unfavorable rating and Clinton with a 53 per cent rating — the highest since George HW Bush earned himself 53 per cent before in 1984. That year Bush also lost the race to Bill Clinton.
The poll also shows Clinton and Trump in a neck and neck race, and according to Real Clear Politics average of five major outlets, the New York businessman leads the former secretary of state by .2 percentage points.
Still, 58 per cent of voters in the ABC News/Washington Post survey said that Trump is unqualified to be president and 64 per cent “strongly feel” that he needs to release his tax returns, ABC News reports. Seventy-six per cent believe Trump doesn’t show enough respect to folks he disagrees with.
Mitt Romney has been the only other candidate to surpass the 50 percent threshold with a 52 per cent rating in 2012.
In the past three decades, the highest unfavorable rating goes to former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke who earned a 69 per cent rating. The difference between him and Trump, besides nine percentage points, is that Duke did not secure his party’s nomination back in 1992.
Bernie Sanders, who significantly trails Clinton in the delegate and super delegate count, is the only remaining candidate who is more liked than disliked with a 51 per cent favorability rating.
