CBS Battleground Poll: Reaction To Latest Clinton Email News Breaks Down Along Party Lines
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/CBS News) -- The reaction to news that the FBI is reviewing newly-discovered emails tied to Hillary Clinton has broken down on a partisan basis, according to a new CBS battleground poll.
News of the decision spread quickly through the battleground states – eight in 10 likely voters had heard about it by Sunday, CBS News reported.
Partisans quickly went to their respective corners: Republicans think it is bad and expect the emails to contain things damaging to Clinton, while most Democrats say too much is being made of it.
While a sizeable third of Democrats also say it's bad, those same Democrats also feel the email matter is not as bad as things they dislike about Donald Trump and they are not re-evaluating their vote, CBS News reported.
The latest survey was conducted across 13 "battleground" states.
There was a suggestion in the survey that the new email issue might limit Clinton's chances of growing beyond the base that is already supporting her. Only 5 percent of Democrats said it could make them less likely to vote for Clinton, while 13 percent said it would make them more likely to vote for her and 50 percent said it would not change anything.
A total of 26 percent of Republicans said they would be less likely to support Clinton in the wake of the news, compared with 47 percent who said it wouldn't change anything and 0 percent saying they are more likely to support Clinton.
Overall, 52 percent of battleground voters expect the emails to contain "more of what we already know" and 48 percent - the largest group of which are Republicans – expect things that are additionally damaging to Clinton, CBS News reported.
The email matter has long been linked to the low ratings Clinton receives on being "honest and trustworthy." In the individual states surveyed this week, those numbers continued to be low for her -- even as interviewing was wrapped up prior to the FBI news.
Those figures amounted to just one-third in Pennsylvania and just 34 percent in North Carolina, states in which she leads despite those ratings and despite trailing Donald Trump on those ratings.
Many of Clinton's own voters also do not describe her as honest – one-third do not in Colorado, nearly one-third do not in North Carolina - and fewer than half of voters overall in North Carolina feel she would act with integrity as President.
That could be one important reason voters – and in particular, Democrats, who support Clinton in large numbers - said they were not re-evaluating, because few already described her as honest and trustworthy. Their criteria throughout the campaign have been more focused on items like experience and the commander-in-chief test, CBS News reported.
The Battleground Tracker this week also surveyed four states individually – Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina and Colorado. Clinton leads in three of the four.
Clinton is up eight points in Pennsylvania – a state critical to Trump's electoral math. She also has a three-point lead in both North Carolina and Colorado, and while keeps his two-point edge in Arizona. Interviewing was largely wrapped up before the news of the emails, but given the results of the subsequent survey, one might not expect those findings to be much affected.
And the larger demographic difference defining the race between Clinton and Donald Trump has been a gender gap – which slightly larger in the latest polling than the last time in these states – that offsets a smaller movement of Republicans to Trump.
Pennsylvania is a particular example of where the difference in party support costs Trump: he gets 78 percent of Republicans while Clinton gets 88 percent of Democrats.
Voters across all the battlegrounds do see a longer-term impact if Clinton should win: just as many (39 percent) think this scandal will stop her from getting things done if she becomes President, as say it'll be relegated to something only her opponents care about.
Trump does own the enthusiasm gap , CBS News reported. In North Carolina, 56 percent of his voters say they're more enthusiastic than they've been before, 26 percent less so. In Arizona, 54 percent of his voters are more enthusiastic than recent years, 27 percent less, for example.
Clinton's numbers are very different. In North Carolina 31 percent of her voters say they're more enthusiastic than past years, and 30 percent less so. In Colorado it's just 26 percent more enthusiastic, outweighed by 40 percent who are less. Still, these voters say they're definitely voting – as do Trump's – so this year enthusiasm for a candidate may not the biggest factor driving turnout.
According to the latest ABC/Washington Post poll, Clinton's lead has shrunk to one point nationally.
At a rally in Florida on Sunday, Clinton avoided talking directly about the FBI's announcement that it is reviewing new information tied to her private server.
"There's a lot of noise and distraction," she said.
Meanwhile, Trump is calling it the biggest political scandal since Watergate.
"We never thought we'd say 'thank you' to Anthony Weiner," he said. "We have one check on Hillary's corruption, and it's the power of the vote."
In July, FBI director James Comey announced that Clinton would not face criminal charges for using a private email service while she was Secretary of State.
But on Friday, Comey wrote a letter to lawmakers saying "in connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation," and "to determine whether they contain classified information."
Law enforcement sources said investigators secured a search warrant Sunday to begin examining the emails, which were found on a laptop shared by disgraced New York Congressman Anthony Weiner and long-time Clinton aide Huma Abedin. Sources said Abedin was cooperating and seemed surprised that the emails were there.
The FBI is working to review the emails and determine if they contain any new information that could be relevant to its investigation. It's possible some of the emails are duplicates that have already been reviewed, the source said.