Following Hillary Clinton's smooth, mendacious performance before the Benghazi Select Committee, the verdict among the chattering class was nearly unanimous
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And how is that playing out in the latest batch of polling? She's certainly pulled decisively ahead in the Democratic primary, as her remaining "rivals" aren't serious about beating her. But in a general election setting, she's stagnant. NBC/WSJ's Democrat-friendly series shows Hillary Clinton tied with Ben Carson and nursing a margin-of-error lead over Marco Rubio -- though she tops Donald Trump by a comfortable margin. Quinnipiac's latest looks worse for her:
Carson 50, Clinton 40 (-10)
Rubio 46, Clinton 41 (-5)
Christie 46, Clinton 41 (-5)
Cruz 46, Clinton 43 (-3)
Clinton 46, Trump 43 (+3)
Per usual, hypothetical head-to-head polling this far out should be viewed very skeptically. Pollsters underestimated the scope of the GOP's 2014 victory, and totally blew last night's easy victory for Republican Matt Bevin in Kentucky. More relevant are her enduringly weak fundamentals. She's at a net (-10) on overall favorability (among the major candidates, only Trump and Jeb are worse), she's languishing at an abysmal (-24) on trustworthiness, and registers at (-9) on the important metric of empathy and caring. Americans split 43/54 (-12) on whether Hillary Clinton shares their values. In the race for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump and Ben Carson are virtually tied at the top of the heap, with Rubio and Cruz pulling into double-digit third and fourth place positions, respectively. Carly Fiorinia's momentum appears to have well and truly vanished, as she's slid to just three percent support, just behind the floundering Jeb Bush, at four percent. Jeb has announced a comeback tour, promising to improve his performance at debates and convey a newfound sense of urgency. A campaign spokesman is admonishing members of the media that resurgences take time,
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FYI political press corps. Jeb's going to have a few weeks of bad polls. Comebacks take time, we recognize and are prepared for that.
— Tim Miller (@Timodc) November 2, 2015Fair enough -- and Jeb certainly doesn't deserve this sort of reckless garbage from Trump -- but to rebound from his acute polling schneid and a terrible debate performance, he's going to need better headlines and instincts than, um, this:
"Jeb Bush apologizes to France" may not be an ideal headline in GOP primary https://t.co/Nxr3G4aq2r
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) November 4, 2015I'll leave you with a chuckle:
Awesome gaffe: Hillary promises to pass a law so “former presidents won’t have to declare their criminal history.” https://t.co/59ACVlqM8D
— Will Saletan (@saletan) November 3, 2015UPDATE - Chuck Todd breaks down some of the data from the new NBC/WSJ poll. Despite surging among Democrats, Hillary's numbers with independents fell post-testimony
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Best. Two. Weeks....evah.
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