Bill Clinton Gives More Voters Doubts About Electing His Wife

Jackie Calmes reports on the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

Wall Street Journal

Bill Clinton plainly has had an impact on his wife’s campaign — just not the one the couple intended.

A plurality of 44% of registered voters say the fact that Hillary Clinton is married to the former president gives them reservations or makes them “very uncomfortable” about electing her, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. That is up by double digits from 33% who expressed reservations or discomfiture in a Journal/NBC poll last November, just as the 2008 nominating races were about to get underway.

Digging deeper into the poll’s data reveals, not surprisingly, that of those who vote in Democratic primaries and caucuses, the ones with doubts about Hillary Clinton because she is married to Bill Clinton are voting for Barack Obama by a four-to-one margin; conversely, those enthusiastic or comfortable with having the mister as First Spouse vote for Hillary Clinton by two-to-one.

These are among the findings unnoted or left on the cutting room floor when the Journal first reported on its latest poll, but which are worth returning to. Peter Hart, the Democratic pollster who conducts the Journal/NBC polls with Republican pollster Bill McInturff, contributed to a second, closer look. The March poll, which surveyed 1,012 registered voters last Friday to Monday, has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points; the margins of error are slightly higher for questions put only to Democratic voters or to Republicans.

(Continued here.)