Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton may well remain the top choices of Republicans and Democrats, but a majority of registered American voters hold strong negative views of both the front-runners, according to two different polls released on Tuesday.
In what would be music to the ears of Trump, who is facing a challenge from the Republican establishment, a CNN/ORC poll found “little appetite for replacing the delegate leader and front-runner with another candidate at the convention or through a third-party run”.
A total of 47 per cent of Republicans would like to see Trump win their party’s nomination as against 31 per cent support for Senator Ted Cruz and 17 per cent for Ohio Governor John Kasich.
In the Democratic race, Clinton continues to top her only rival, Bernie Sanders, with 51 per cent favouring the former Secretary of State and 44 per cent backing the Senator from Vermont.
While the CNN poll projections may be good news for Trump and Clinton, another poll conducted by The New York Times and CBS News found that an overwhelming majority of registered American voters held either an unfavourable opinion of the two front-runners or remained undecided about them.
The NYT/CBS poll found that only 24 per cent of voters favoured Trump, while 57 per cent were unfavourable to his candidacy, with 19 per cent undecided. In respect of Clinton, only 31 per cent favoured her, with 52 per cent remaining unfavourable and 16 per cent undecided.