Wait, who are the 46 percent of people who think Donald Trump is more trustworthy than Hillary Clinton?

A new poll shows that Trump has an 8-point lead in a question about trustworthiness

Published November 2, 2016 3:26PM (EDT)

Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton   (AP/Mark Ralston)
Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton (AP/Mark Ralston)

Donald Trump is a beacon of honesty and integrity, according to a new Washington Post-ABC tracking poll, from Oct. 28 to Oct. 31, that indicates that the Republican presidential nominee has an 8-point advantage over his opponent, Hillary Clinton, in the trustworthiness category.

Amazingly, 46 percent of those polled indicate that Trump — someone who said he had never met Russian President Vladimir Putin years after saying he had indeed met him — is more trustworthy than Clinton, who has the faith of only 38 percent of likely voters.

In September a tracking poll by the same organizations found the two candidates tied on this measure. But the electorate is now apparently alarmed about the FBI's Friday announcement of a review of recently surfaced emails that appear to be pertinent to a now-closed investigation of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. (According to the most recent tracking poll, 59 percent of those polled disapprove of the way Clinton handled an inquiry into her use of personal email as secretary of state.)

While Clinton's candidness and authenticity — or lack there of — have been front and center during this campaign, Donald Trump's compulsive lying has fried the circuits of the mainstream press. According to a tally by Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale, Trump made 104 false claims during the presidential debates compared with only 13 by Hillary Clinton.

Yet the electorate and the press appear to be more offended by Clinton's email practices than they are about Trump's propensity to lie.

Trump's relationship with the truth is like the Chicago Cubs' relationship with the World Series before 2016: avoiding it at all costs. Trump tells lies big and small. He tells lies that have no impact on his candidacy. He tells falsehoods that have manipulated and brainwashed a big portion of this country. And because Trump is the least transparent presidential candidate in history, as Ezra Klein argued today, there are no consequences to Trump's big deceptions.  


By Taylor Link

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