Election 2016 Polls: Hillary Clinton Support Falls As Bernie Sanders Gains Ground, Donald Trump And Ben Carson Grow In Popularity

Support for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has plummeted by one-third in the past two months, the latest poll by ABC News and the Washington Post showed Monday. The primary cause? Voters’ concerns about her “honesty and empathy,” the poll reported. Support for Democratic rival and Sen. Bernie Sanders grew 10 percentage points. On the Republican side, Donald Trump and Ben Carson have grown increasingly popular in the past two months.

Clinton’s ratings dropped from 63 percent in July to 42 percent in September, though she remains far ahead of Sanders’ 24 percent and Vice President Joe Biden’s 21 percent. Still, “Clinton’s trajectory leaves no question that she has trouble,” the poll reported. Her ratings for honesty and trustworthiness have dropped to an all-time low of 39 percent, in part due to her use of a private server for her work email during her stint as secretary of state, the poll found.

Support for business mogul and Republican candidate Donald Trump grew to 33 percent, from 24 percent in July, while support for neurosurgeon and fellow GOP competitor Dr. Ben Carson skyrocketed from 6 percent in July to 20 percent. Yet, even with the increase in supports, Trump is hardly viewed as a qualified candidate. Six out of 10 Americans don’t consider him qualified to be president, according to the poll. Support for Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, dropped to 8 percent from a high of 21 percent in March.

A separate analysis by ABC News/Washington Post released Sunday showed that in a general election, Clinton and Trump were fairly evenly matched among registered voters, with 46 percent support Clinton and 43 percent favoring Trump. Clinton would fare better with minority groups, while Trump would attract voters who agreed with his extreme views on immigration, the analysis said.

The September ABC/Washington Post poll surveyed 1,003 U.S. adults by telephone between Sept. 7-10, 2015, and had a margin of sampling error of 3.5 percentage points.