The Trump Trust Gap

By: Mike Montgomery

There is no question that Donald Trump is driving the narrative for the 2016 presidential election, with every other candidate relegated to co-stars. Trump’s challenge is whether along the way he burns so many bridges that he’s unelectable.

Whatever the strategy, fundamental to a candidate’s success is getting the voters to trust you. So, is Trump trusted? A new survey says no.

By sizable margins, voters say that in a hypothetical race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, they trust Clinton more. And that is bad news for our country. We need candidates who are trusted and inspired. Trump’s bombastic ways are burning bridges, and while Americans trust Clinton more, she has her own trust issues partially fueled by the ongoing controversy over her State Department emails.

My tech advocacy organization, CALInnovates, sponsored a poll by Vrge Analytics of 806 Americans. We asked them to decide, in a hypothetical election between Trump and Clinton, who they trusted more on specific issues.

As a non-partisan group, offering an endorsement isn’t our aim here. We hope to eventually see concrete proposals from candidates from both major parties outlining how they intend to spur innovation and support entrepreneurship and the new economy in the U.S. if elected. The person who sits in the Oval Office not to sets the agenda but can push policies that can help or hurt entrepreneurs.

On the question of overall trust, 47% of respondents said they trust Clinton more while only 27% trust Trump more. Women were more likely to trust Clinton than Trump but while 34% of male respondents chose Trump, 40% chose Clinton.

Read the full article here.