Politics

Poll: Clinton’s gender is her top 2016 selling point

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If Hillary Clinton runs for president in 2016 her top selling point will be — not her experience, not her competency, or intelligence — the fact that if she would be the first U.S. president with ovaries.

A new Gallup poll released Friday found that when asked what the best or most positive thing about a Hillary Clinton presidency would be, 18 percent cited the fact that she would be the first woman president. The second most popular answer, at nine percent, was her experience, specifically her foreign policy experience.

Other positives, that netted at least five percent of respondents, were that she would be the best choice, that she would be a change from the Bush and Obama administrations and that she would stick to a Democratic agenda.

A little less than half of respondents either had no opinion (22 percent) and answered “nothing” (27 percent).

“Clearly Clinton’s ‘unique selling proposition’ is that she would be the first woman president,” Gallup’s Frank Newport writes. “Nearly one in five Americans mention this historic possibility as a positive, including 22% of women, 27% of 18- to 29-year-olds, and 30% of Democrats.”

Just four percent of Americans said the most negative aspect of a Clinton presidency would be the fact that she is a woman, and one percent said that the country is not ready for a woman president.

When broken down by party, Democrats who had a negative view of a Hillary Clinton presidency were most likely to say they “don’t want a female president.” Six percent of Democrats gave that response. Most Republicans said the most negative aspect would be a “continuation of this path.”

To be sure, the highest percentage of Democrats (30 percent) pointed to the fact that she would be the first female president as the best aspect. Most independents did the same (17 percent).

Most Republicans pointed to the change in administration as the best factor (11 percent), and just seven percent of Republicans said the historic aspect of the first female president would be the most positive.

The poll of 1,024 adults in the United States was conducted from March 15-17 and has a sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

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