By Niall Stanage - 07-16-16 09:07 AM EDT
Violence at home and abroad is roiling the presidential race, creating a new element of uncertainty in the battle between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
Traumatic events have come thick and fast. An apparent terrorist attack in Nice, France, during Bastille Day celebrations late Thursday killed at least 84 people. While those horrors were still dominating the headlines, an attempted military coup broke out in Turkey.
In the United States, this month has seen the fatal shooting of five police officers in Dallas by a sniper reportedly enraged by the deaths of African-Americans at the hands of law enforcement.
Last month saw the worst mass shooting in modern American history, when 49 people were gunned down at a gay nightclub in Orlando. There was also terrorist carnage in Brussels and Ankara in March, and in Paris last November.
The confluence of events has created a feeling that the social fabric of America is strained, even as the wider world careens off its axis.
But whether increased anxiety about international terrorism and domestic upheaval makes voters more sympathetic to Clinton or Trump is hard to answer.
In political terms, recent events are "cutting both ways" said Grant Reeher, a political science professor at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.
Republicans have long held an advantage on matters of national security, Reeher noted. But he added that Clinton's greater experience and perceived steadiness might serve her well against the impetuous Trump, who has never run for elected office before.
"If the American public wants a stronger response, and they want a more assertive role in the world, they think Republicans are going to be more likely to push that," Reeher said. "But the other things voters look for is stability, and that would work more in favor of Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump."
Opinion polls capture some of this complexity.
Trump generally scores at least as well as Clinton - and sometimes better - when it comes to handling terrorism. A mid-June poll from the Pew Research Center gave him a 3-point advantage on that issue, 46 percent to 43 percent, while a CBS News/New York Times poll this week showed the two candidates exactly even on 46 percent apiece.
The Republican seems to score especially highly when the question explicitly frames the issue as a threat from Islamist radicals. In a Quinnipiac University poll conducted in late June, Trump had a 13-point advantage when voters were asked which candidate would be the more effective against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Those findings come in spite of Clinton having a consistent, wide advantage on the question of who is better prepared to be president. In the CBS poll, 50 percent of respondents said she was ready for the job, while only 30 percent said the same of Trump.
Clinton also has a huge lead when it comes to an important part of the domestic picture - improving race relations. The Pew poll gave her a 68 percent to 23 percent advantage over Trump in that regard.
Democrats argue that those numbers prove that voters will look past Trump's emotional appeal as a "strongman" in moments of crisis and appreciate what Clinton supporters see as her steadier hand.
"Yes, there are those gut, primal feelings that say, 'Trump is right about these damn terrorists,' " said Democratic strategist Brad Bannon. "But if Hillary comes back strong, they are reminded that they prefer her on international matters."
Bannon argued that the same thing was true in the domestic arena, where voters may think Trump "is going to be tough and solve all these problems. But then they think about it and think 'Who is more likely to reduce racial tension?'"
Republicans, predictably, see things rather differently.
Matt Mackowiak, a GOP strategist, noted that Trump "believes in strength, he believes in confidence, he believes in willpower. I think he feels that this is a moment where the country is looking for a strong leader. And it's not clear that Hillary has that in her."
Mackowiak, too, acknowledged that divining how the tumult at home and abroad will affect the presidential election is inherently difficult.
But he took heart from Trump's comparatively restrained response to the attack in Nice and to the killing of the Dallas police officers. The business mogul had met with strong criticism for responding to the Orlando shooting with a self-congratulatory tweet.
"If you just look at Trump's response to Orlando versus Trump's response to Dallas there was, I think, more discipline," the strategist said. "It was more thoughtful, more professional. For those of us who want to see him perform well, that was an encouraging sign."
But with the world in flux, the nation tense and the looming possibility of unrest at the party conventions, no one is really sure where the race is headed.
"There are a lot of wrinkles in this," Reeher said.
No comments:
Post a Comment