55% Have a Favorable Opinion of Hillary Clinton
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is viewed by many as the chief advocate of U.S. military intervention in Libya, and voters view her slightly less favorably than they did just over a month ago.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 55% of Likely U.S. Voters have at least a somewhat favorable impression of Clinton, down five points from last month. Thirty-eight percent (38%) now view the former New York senator unfavorably. The latest findings include 26% who have a Very Favorable opinion of Clinton and 19% who share a Very Unfavorable view of her. (To see survey question wording, click here.) [link]
Clinton's favorables have consistently been in the mid- to high 50s since she became secretary of State in January 2009.
Forty-four percent (44%) of voters continue to hold a favorable view of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, showing virtually no change since November 2008 when President Obama decided to hold him over from the Cabinet of his predecessor, George W. Bush. Twenty-nine percent (29%) have an unfavorable opinion of Gates who recently announced that he will step down this year. This includes 12% with a Very Favorable opinion of him and eight percent (8%) who view him Very Unfavorably. Twenty-seven percent (27%) still don't know enough about Gates to voice any kind of opinion of him.
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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters U.S. Voters was conducted on March 26-27, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
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