Trump Most Unliked POTUS Contender in Modern Times

Donald Trump: presumptive GOP nominee, Cheeto Jesus, and, per Politico, a record-setter for "political toxicity." That's the site's analysis of Trump's standing with the American people after recent polls show he's reached a level of unpopularity "without historical peer in the modern era of presidential campaigns." An ABC News/Washington Post poll released Wednesday shows 70% look at Trump "unfavorably," a 10-point rise since last month. Not that Hillary Clinton got off scot-free: She rose to an unfavorable rating of 55%, a high for her as well. The poll's press release points out that the 1,000 adult participants were surveyed between June 8 and June 12—much of that time fell before last weekend's Orlando shooting and the candidates' remarks on it. A Bloomberg poll also released this week, surveying 1,000 US adults between June 10 and June 13, doesn't do much for the Donald, either, assigning him a 66% unfavorable rating and Hillary 54%. And a Gallup poll taken between June 10 and June 16 has Trump perched on the 64% unfavorable rung, while Clinton hovers at 55%.

Perhaps most stunning, though, is how Trump—who once said black voters would like him better than Obama and that Hispanics are "going to love Trump"—fares among racial and ethnic minorities: In the ABC/Post poll, 94% of blacks and 89% of Hispanics give him a negative rating, while 59% of whites do. Hillary, on the other hand, claims a relatively low percentage of blacks (19%) and Hispanics (34%) who view her unfavorably, but she falters behind Trump with white voters, with 68% unfavorability. Also notable, per Politico, is how strong the negative emotions swirling around Trump are, with a majority of voters in both the ABC/Post poll and the Bloomberg poll saying they had a "strongly unfavorable" feeling about him. The last POTUS candidate with a majority of "unfavorable" ratings during June of an election year: George HW Bush in 1992. Still, none of this may matter. "Will the United States elect a president whom more than half the people view unfavorably? Today, the answer to that question looks like it might be yes," a Quinnipiac University pollster tells Politico. (More Election 2016 stories.)