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Okay, hear me out, but I don't think Donald Trump is going to be the president

Donald Trump Holds Campaign Rally In Phoenix, Arizona Ralph Freso/Getty Images
Dylan Matthews is a senior correspondent and head writer for Vox's Future Perfect section and has worked at Vox since 2014. He is particularly interested in global health and pandemic prevention, anti-poverty efforts, economic policy and theory, and conflicts about the right way to do philanthropy.

The latest CNN/ORC election poll doesn't just ask voters who they plan on voting for (Clinton beats Trump by 5 points, for what it's worth). It also asked registered voters to describe how they would feel if Clinton or Trump won the presidency: Would they be afraid, or embarrassed, or proud, or excited, or hopeful? The results for Trump are some pretty rough stuff:

Fifty-six percent would be afraid if Trump won, and 56 percent would be embarrassed (we don’t know if this is the same 56 percent but presumably there’s considerable overlap). Only a quarter would be proud.

The results for Clinton are more tempered than you might suspect. Relatively few people are excited or proud about the prospect of a Clinton presidency (though she still fares better than Trump). But at the very least, most voters wouldn’t be afraid or embarrassed:

CNN/ORC

This is just one poll, and it specifically looks at registered voters, which tends to overstate Democrats’ strength relative to polls of likely voters (Republicans who are registered are more likely to actually turn out than Democrats).

But the overall conclusion has been backed up by favorability and horse race polling for months. Both presidential nominees are more disliked than they are liked. In fact, Clinton and Trump are the most disliked nominees in history:

Brendan Nyhan

But Trump is substantially more disliked. He currently boasts a net approval rating of -23.8 points according to HuffPost Pollster, compared to -12.8 for Clinton. And so while 39 percent of Americans may purport to be embarrassed by a Clinton presidency, 56 percent say that about Trump.

So far this is translating into a fluctuating but consistent lead for Clinton in national polling, which has risen since she beat Bernie Sanders once and for all in California.

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The political science that predicted Trump's rise

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