NBC tracking poll: 20% of Hillary voters think she should have been prosecuted

First, the good news: Hillary Clinton took a hit in the NBC/Survey Monkey national tracking poll after James Comey’s statement showed she had been lying about every aspect of the e-mail scandal. The bad news: Hillary went from a five-point lead to, er, a three-point lead. Actually, she only dropped a single point from the previous week, sliding from 48% to 47%:

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Hillary Clinton’s lead over Donald Trump narrowed to 3 points this week after several days of controversy following FBI Director James Comey’s recommendation that no criminal charges be brought against the former secretary of state over her use of a private email server.

While the developments are certainly good news for the Clinton campaign, Comey’s critical statement on Clinton’s handling of the matter was not positive. Clinton’s lead over Trump has deteriorated in the past couple weeks since her lead peaked two weeks ago.

Deteriorated? It went from 49% to 48% and then 47%. All of that is well within the margin of error. Donald Trump’s numbers went from 41% to 43% and then 44%, a bit more bouncy but also within the MoE. Trump’s still slightly below his May peaks at 45%. This isn’t deterioration; it’s sample noise. Hillary’s favorables barely budged, going from 40/59 to 38/60.

Just as with the WaPo/ABC poll yesterday (but this time with registered voters rather than adults), 56% of respondents express disapproval with the FBI Director’s decision not to press for an indictment for Hillary’s mishandling of classified information. But how can 56% want Hillary indicted while 47% still want to vote for her? This is how:

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Twenty percent of Hillary’s supporters wanted her indicted? If that’s the case, then why are they still supporting her for the presidency? Call me crazy, but the perceived need to indict a politician usually acts as a disqualifier for consideration to any office, let alone the highest office in the land — the one with the constitutional duty to enforce the law.

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The answer will be it’s the fault of Republicans for nominating Trump as the alternative. Well, perhaps, but Democrats nominated Hillary while knowing full well she was under FBI scrutiny over the e-mail scandal, too. Anyone paying attention knew she was lying about it from her March 2015 press conference all the way to Comey’s remarkable refutation of her talking points last week. And she still won the Democratic nomination, and even after Comey’s declaration, the percentage of people who want Bernie Sanders to stay in the race through the convention has increased only one point in a month. Amazing.

Maybe that’s why Gary Johnson’s numbers ticked up two points to give the Libertarian his first double-digit following in this series in the four-way race question. Hillary has dropped from June’s consistent 42% to 40%, while Trump remains constant at 38%. If the Libertarian moment is ever to be upon us, it’s now.

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