Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump consolidated their frontrunner positions with substantial wins in Tuesday’s contests in delegate-rich Arizona, while Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders won the Utah and Idaho Democratic caucuses.
With a 1,681-delegate count that includes Superdelegates, Clinton now clearly spearheads the nomination race over Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who has 937 delegates to his credit.
Securing the winner-take-all vote from Arizona, mainly on anti-immigration stance, Trump now has 739 delegates, a 274 lead over his closest Republican rival Ted Cruz, who has 465 delegates after he won in Utah.
But the unusually charged 2016 election season added another unprecedented dimension to it, when a CBS/New York Times poll Tuesday revealed that both Democratic and Republican leading candidates fare negatively among more than 50 percent registered American voters.
A CBS report said the poll found more than half of voters hold unfavorable views about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump with each frontrunner in the primary race currently having a net negative rating in the double-digits.
The poll findings come almost midway through the primary contests with the latest Democratic fights taking place on Tuesday in Arizona primary and Idaho and Utah caucuses. Republican contestants were vying for delegates in Arizona (votes) and Utah (caucus)
Trump, who is a contentious figure within the GOP, is viewed disapprovingly by 57 of registered voters while Clinton is seen negatively by 52 percent of polled voters – marking the highest level of unfavorable ratings by any candidates in the last 32 years, when CBS began recording unfavorable trends of candidates among voters in 1984.
Other findings of the poll by the two media organizations say, as expected, Democrats hold negative views of Trump and a majority of Republicans judge Clinton unfavorably.
However, the poll finds that more than half of independents have unfavorable views of both candidates.
While six in ten Democrats hold a favorable opinion of Clinton, only about half of Republicans express favorable opinion of Trump.
As for the parties, Americans don’t hold especially favorable views of the country’s two major political parties, the CBS said.
The Democratic Party does better than the Republican Party in a contrast of 46 percent favorable opinion of the Democratic Party and 28 percent viewing GOP favorably. The poll reveals that a record 66 percent of Americans view the Republican Party unfavorably.
Quite importantly, 13 percent of Democrats view their own party negatively while 39 percent of Republicans see their party negatively.
The poll also disclosed some interesting match-up scenarios between the top candidates of the two parties.
Matched up against the Republican candidates, Hillary Clinton notches up a 10-point lead over Trump among registered voters. However, she scores just three points lead over Ted Cruz. John Kasich, who is placed third in the Republican race, races past Clinton by four points.
On the other hand, Democrat Sanders’ performs even better than Clinton in a match-up against Trump, partly due to his stronger support among independents. Continuing the trend, younger voters back Sanders in a general election, with 61 percent of voters under age 45 indicating they would back Sanders over Trump.
While Clinton, former secretary of state, has been in the lead from the start, Republican billionaire Trump, who has been exploiting anger among Americans about their economic status and the nation’s direction, still has some work to do as Ted Cruz (407) and John Kasich continue their campaigns. Marco Rubio, who has dropped out of the primary, is still considered favorite of the Republican Party establishment.
