Polarized Politics

Hillary Clinton is the most favorably regarded politician today according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.  More than half (56%) the public give her a “very” or “somewhat” positive feelings rating out of a list of six politicians, including President Obama, former President G.W. Bush and three who would like to be president. President Obama has a 47 percent total positive.

But, passion and polarization are best reflected in the public’s strongest expression of “very positive” or “very negative” feelings. Using just the most intense expressions of feelings, Hillary Clinton is still the most well-regarded, but discounting his lower name identification, Marco Rubio comes in second (+4%). The President is in third in the difference between positive and negative feelings (+3%) because of his high negative rating (27%).

G.W. Bush wins the most polarization contest with the highest negative-to-positive difference (-14%).  Interestingly, even with sizable numbers of Americans who can’t rate him (27%), Michael Bloomberg is already in second place on the list with a net negative rating of minus seven.