At a time when the majority of Americans do not view Hillary Clinton as honest and trustworthy, nearly all registered voters deem honesty an important characteristic for the next U.S. president to possess.
According to a CNN/ORC poll released Monday, 95 percent of registered voters believe it very or extremely important for the presidential candidate elected in 2016 to be honest and trustworthy.
The enthusiasm for this characteristic is consistent across demographics, and significant majorities of both Democratic and Republican voters--95 percent and 97 percent, respectively--agree honesty is an important characteristic for the incoming commander-in-chief.
Unfortunately for Clinton, who has continuously been battling her private email scandal since March, 57 percent of American adults would not describe the Democratic presidential candidate as honest and trustworthy, according to a separate CNN/ORC survey published last month.
Clinton has also endured a disastrous drop in her favorable rating, which has sunk from 48 percent in April when she first announced her presidential campaign to 43 percent today, according to Gallup. Meanwhile, the share of Americans holding an unfavorable view of Clinton has ticked up to 46 percent, indicating that more U.S. adults view her negatively than positively.
This represents Clinton’s worst net favorable rating since December 2007.
Americans, on the other hand, are softening to Clinton’s toughest competition, Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. His favorable rating has doubled since March.
Nevertheless, Clinton doesn’t seem phased by the inability of the American public to trust her. In fact, she doesn’t appear to trust the poll numbers themselves.
"People should and do trust me," Clinton told CNN reporter Brianna Keilar in the first nationally televised interview of her presidential campaign in early July. "And I have every confidence that that will be the outcome of this election."
In the same interview, Clinton made a false claim about receiving subpoenas regarding her personal email communications.