Hillary Clinton may have spent a full 36 hours trying to perfect her approach to the Orlando terrorist attack, but according to a CBS News poll, Americans preferred her handling of the event to Donald Trump’s.
Clinton began with a message of sorrow for the victims and slowly segued into a discussion of gun control. By the following day, Clinton was responding to accusations, from Donald Trump specifically, that she had failed to address the “radical Islam” facet to the attack, giving several different explanations of her position to several different media outlets.
But while her exact approach is hard to pin down—and could rightfully be termed no approach at all—36% of Americans claimed they thought she responded well to Orlando. And although Trump seemed to have dominated the messaging in the days following the attack, only 25% of Americans preferred his approach.
But when it comes to whose approach Americans didn’t like, Trump is the clear winner (even though 47% of Americans do feel he’s right that the event was a terrorist attack). A whopping 51% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s virulent anti-ISIS, anti-immigration message. Only about 27% of Americans strongly disapproved of Hillary’s response.
This is probably bad news for Trump, who relies on confrontational and, often, controversial language to buoy his support. He’s already six points down to Clinton (and tracking lower in the polls than other recent Republican presidential candidates who wound up losing were tracking at the same point in their campaign). Republican Party unfavorables, meanwhile, are at a two-year low.
If an actual terrorist attack cannot increase his support levels—and it seems like it’s mostly galvanizing only his self-selected supporters—it’s unclear what else will.