Idahoans have come around to the idea of Donald Trump being the GOP presidential nominee this year, although many don’t like it.
Nearly half say they will vote for him in a match-up with Democrat Hillary Clinton,
About half also believes he will be our next president, a new Idaho Politics Weekly poll shows.
Pollster Dan Jones & Associates has just come out of the polling field with his new survey, and it shows:
- In a match-up between Trump and the presumptive Democratic nominee Clinton, Trump would win Idaho, 49 percent to Clinton’s 32 percent.
- 18 percent are still undecided.
- Asked who will be our next president, 47 percent said it will be Trump, 28 percent believe it will be Clinton, 8 percent said it would be Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (who is still in the Democratic race), 3 percent said it would be someone else, and 15 percent didn’t know.
Another interesting Idaho demographic statistic:
- While Trump is now clearly the favorite presidential candidate in Idaho, he also has a real problem with Idaho women – as he has trouble with women across the country.
Jones asked if Trump were on the November ballot, “what would you do?”
- 51 percent of men said they would vote for Trump.
- But only 32 percent of women said they would vote for Trump.
- 29 percent of women said they would vote for the Democratic nominee, no matter who that was.
- 17 percent of women said they would vote for someone else (not named).
- 5 percent of women said they would not vote at all.
- 8 percent said they would vote, but not cast a ballot in the presidential race.
- And 8 percent of women said they don’t know what they would do.
The “vote for Trump” drops by almost 20 percentage points from men to women – a huge gap that is not normally seen among genders in almost any question Jones has asked over 40 years of polling.
Trump also only gets 34 percent of the politically independent vote on that question – not a good sign either for the strength of his candidacy in Idaho.
That means two-thirds of Idaho independents are looking for someone else other than Trump to vote for in November.
But, since it likely will be a Clinton-Trump final election, even though not many Idahoans are that happy with Trump (especially women and independents), compared to Clinton he is still in good shape in the Gem State, Jones finds.
However, should something odd happen in the National Democratic Convention coming in July, and Sanders ended up being the Democratic presidential nominee, in Idaho at least the presidential race is a toss-up.
Jones finds if it were Sanders against Trump in the final election:
- 43 percent said they would vote for Sanders.
- 46 percent said they would vote for Trump.
- 11 percent said they don’t know.
Considering that the margin of error in the poll is a plus or minus 3.99 percent, the Sanders-Trump race is now a statistical dead heat.
But don’t get your hopes up, Idaho Sanders-likers.
Clinton will likely get the remaining delegates she needs inTuesday’s California primary election, and she already has 3 million more votes in the Democratic primary nationwide than does Sanders.
And even if she falls a bit short Tuesday, unless hundreds of “super delegates” desert her in the convention (and that won’t happen), she will win the nomination on the first delegate ballot in Philadelphia.
Jones polled 603 adults from May 18 to June 4, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.99 percent.