More than 15 million people watched the Democratic debate on Tuesday, and saw Hillary Clinton prove that she is probably more electable than a balding 74-year-old socialist and three other random white dudes. She got a "boost," according to the top pundits, when Bernie Sanders defended her in response to a question about her increasingly worrisome email scandal.
"Let me say something that may not be great politics, but I think the secretary is right, and that is that the American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails," Sanders grouched.
It might not be great politics (for Sanders), and the Democratic debate crowd went wild, but is it true? Let's investigate.
Back in August, a majority of Americans, and almost a quarter of Democrats, said they thought the email scandal was serious enough to warrant a criminal investigation.
52% of voters think Hillary Clinton’s emails should be subject to a criminal investigation, including 23% of Dems http://t.co/cCOmTxajOj
— Hunter Schwarz (@hunterschwarz) August 12, 2015
What about now? Are they tired of hearing about it? On the contrary, it's not clear that many of the people tuning into the Democrat debate had heard anything about the scandal.
Bernie: American people are sick & tired hearing about your email American people: What this about Hillary's email? pic.twitter.com/gPs75jMsbO — Political Math (@politicalmath) October 14, 2015
"What is the @HillaryClinton email scandal about?" Top questions during the #DemDebate https://t.co/4G1ttsmTkV pic.twitter.com/juryzv3D6J
— GoogleTrends (@GoogleTrends) October 14, 2015
It's true that some Democrats who closely follow politics are certainly "sick and tired" of hearing about Hillary's email scandal, and presumably could care less whether she was passing along the identity of a top-secret CIA source, or peddling Sidney Blumenthal's business interests in Libya. But clearly there are a lot of everyday Americans who are eager to hear more.
Bernie Sanders might not think so, but recent polling shows that there are plenty of voters who think Hillary's email secrecy is a legitimate issue.
