Surprise! Hillary's Lead Grows

by Deacon Blues

Just last week, the talk all across MSNBC and other TV pundit outlets was that Hillary was wounded by Bernie Sanders’ rise and her tanking honesty and likeability numbers. Some of us have been saying for months that 1) Voters have already made their minds up on Hillary’s personal traits and will vote for her independent of that; and 2) All that matters is how she does in head-to-head matchups when her campaign theme and issues roll out.

I feel vindicated by yesterday’s NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, which shows that in the aftermath of Hillary’s campaign events and messages of the last several weeks, many of which have a progressive theme, she now has a commanding lead within the party and against any possible GOP rival. The poll also shows that cleaning up campaign finance, as Hillary espoused early on to great surprise from her progressive critics, and strengthening Social Security can be winning issues with the 2016 electorate. Lastly, the poll shows that after respondents have had several months to look at Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Scott Walker, Hillary now beats them by larger margins than she did in April.

With a poll like this showing the GOP "Smear Hillary" tactics failing, we can predict that Fox News and the rest of the right wing Koch-funded machinery to amp it up even further. Yet the poll also shows that the public rejects months of negative ads and instead wants to hear about issues and values, thereby allowing Hillary to chart a path where she can benefit from what the GOP is doing to her.