While Donald Trump may delight in bragging endlessly about what a great businessman he is, it turns out that an overwhelming majority of Americans think he should step down as chairman of the Trump Organization while he runs for President.
According to a new CNN/ORC poll, fully 69 percent of those surveyed said they think Trump should stop running Trump businesses while he is engaged in his race for the White House. Only 28 percent say he should remain as chairman.
A closer look at the poll also shows that the consensus for Trump to cut his business ties reaches across political boundaries, with 56% of Republicans, 71% of independents, and 77% of Democrats saying Trump should not run his business directly while engaged in a campaign for the highest office in the land. Even among those who say they would vote for Trump against Hillary Clinton, 55% say he should to step aside while his career in politics continues.
The numbers for Trump also stand in stark contrast to the same question regarding former President Bill Clinton, who is also on the board of the Clinton Foundation. Only 38 percent of respondents said President Clinton should not continue his work with the foundation while his wife is running for President.
Other questions in the CNN/ORC poll also have bad news for Trump: Half of voters say Trump and his campaign have unfairly attacked Clinton, while only 36% say Clinton has unfairly attacked Trump.
In a Presidential race with two candidates who both have such high unfavorability ratings, it will be interesting to see which of the two contenders can manage to drive up their opponent’s negatives to an even higher level. So far, Trump has the lead in this dubious category, with 7 in 10 women saying they have an unfavorable opinion of Trump. In recent weeks, Clinton has been defining Trump as unfit to be Commander-in-Chief and a threat to the American economy.
Yesterday, Trump attempted to fight back against Clinton, but his speech, billed as an economic address, was little more than one-liners and accusations which were easily proven untrue by fact-checkers.
Featured Image Via Gage Skidmore for Flickr available under a Creative Commons 2.0 License
