Most Americans view Trump, Clinton unfavorably: Poll

A majority of Americans hold an unfavorable view of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, and consider them dishonest and untrustworthy, a new poll shows.

According to the NBC News/SurveyMonkey Weekly Election Tracking Poll, released on Tuesday, the former secretary of state is viewed negatively by 59 percent of voters and the New York billionaire by 64 percent.

A majority of voters chose none when asked to choose qualities that describe each candidate, including honesty, values and temperament.

However, 42 percent of voters stated Clinton had the “personality and temperament to serve” as president. Only 17 percent said the same for Trump.

Only 16 percent said Trump is honest and trustworthy and merely 11 percent said the same of Clinton.

According to the poll, Clinton leads Trump by 9 points in the run-up to the 2016 US presidential race.

She is favored by 50 percent of likely voters to Trump’s 41 percent, which closely mirrors last week’s result in the same survey.

Clinton received 43 percent to Trump’s 37 percent in a four-candidate match-up. In that scenario, Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson earned 11 percent, while Green Party candidate Jill Stein bagged 4 percent.

The poll was conducted from August 8 to 14 among a national sample of 15,179 registered voters. The margin of error is 1.2 points.

Clinton leads Trump

US Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton

According to another poll, also released on Tuesday, Clinton has a 6-percentage point lead over Trump.

The Reuters/Ipsos tracking survey shows she has 41 percent of the votes as compared to the billionaire having only a 35-percent support.

Another nearly 24 percent of likely voters chose neither of the two major party’s nominees.

Clinton’s support has ranged from 41 percent to 44 percent since late July, while Trump’s support has experienced wider shifts ranging from 33 percent to 39 percent.

At this point in 2012, President Barack Obama was leading Republican nominee Mitt Romney by nearly the same margin, with 46 percent of likely voters supporting him while 41 percent backing Romney. Thirteen percent picked neither candidate.

The poll was conducted from August 11 to 15 among a national sample of 1,132 and 1,131 likely voters. The margin of error is 3 points.

In a separate poll Clinton maintained that 6-point lead over Trump in a four-candidate match-up. Johnson earned 8 percent, while Stein bagged 2 percent.

Trump has been under criticism over his inflammatory remarks and policy proposals such as temporarily banning Muslims from entering the country and building a wall along the US-Mexican border.

He is in danger of losing his grip on the Republican Party, with fears growing that the New York businessman is heading for a “landslide defeat” to Clinton in the November election.

More than 120 Republicans, including former members of Congress and Republican National Committee (RNC) staff, wrote a letter calling for the RNC to stop helping Trump, saying his actions were “divisive and dangerous.”