Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, with “Today” show co-anchor Matt Lauer, left, speaks at the NBC Commander-In-Chief Forum held at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space museum aboard the decommissioned aircraft carrier Intrepid, New York, Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2016.
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The poll tested public reaction to several recent critiques raised by the candidates against their opponents, which were highlighted in a presidential forum hosted by NBC last night and on the campaign trail Thursday.
Trump did little to counter the criticism that he lacks detailed policy proposals, particularly regarding the Islamic State.
She also strongly criticised Trump for “bizarrely” praising Putin and taking the “astonishing step” of suggesting that he prefers the Russian leader over Obama. Independents are about evenly split, and for the most part, voters who identify as Democrat or Republican are sticking with their nominee. Overall, 38% say it should be shut down now to do so, another 22% say it should be shut down if Clinton wins the presidency, and 34% say it does too much good to be shut down completely.
Clinton did have a 4-point lead in North Carolina in a one-on-one match-up, 47%-43%.
But when asked who is most likely to be elected president, 49% of the poll’s respondents gave the nod to the former secretary of state. Libertarian Gary Johnson also earned 15 percent. He was asked Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” what he would do as president about Aleppo, the Syrian city at the centre of the refugee crisis, Johnson replied, “And what is Aleppo?” He devoted about a third of his time with Clinton to questioning her about her use of a private email server and seemed to rush through topics that included domestic terrorism. But she defended her support for US military intervention to help oust a dictator in Libya, despite the chaotic aftermath.
Trump stood by a previous comment that appeared to blame military sexual assaults on men and women serving together, but added he would not seek to remove women from the military. And for the first time, he opened the door to granting legal status to people living in the US illegally who join the military.
And although Trump is on the losing side in this question, he fares better than nearly every Republican in the last 24 years. Clinton had earlier mentioned a 2002 radio interview with Howard Stern in which Trump said he favored the USA invasion.
Donald Trump is insisting he opposed the war in Iraq from the beginning, even though fact checkers have repeatedly said that claim is false.
Other commenters also said Lauer went easier on Trump.
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Pace reported from Washington.
