Most Voters Say Bill Clinton Is A Sexual Predator
Former President Bill Clinton had an embarrassing #MeToo moment last week in a televised interview, claiming he, too, was a victim of the sex scandal that led to his impeachment. But most voters disagree and see Clinton as a sexual offender instead.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that just 24% of Likely U.S. Voters consider Clinton a victim of his political opponents. Fifty-three percent (53%) describe the ex-president as a sexual predator instead. Another 24% are undecided.(To see survey question wording, click here.)
Interestingly, men (55%) are more likely to consider Clinton a predator than women (50%) are.
Clinton in the TV interview also said he didn’t see any need to apologize personally to Monica Lewinsky, the White House intern he had an affair with and a key figure in the impeachment scandal. But 44% of all voters say Clinton should personally apologize to Lewinsky. Thirty-four percent (34%) disagree, while 22% are undecided.
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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on June 7 and 10, 2018 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.
As recently as last November, 50% of voters still held a favorable opinion of Clinton, but 59% believed the allegations by several women that he sexually assaulted them.
Voters of all ages are in general agreement on both of the new questions.
Men believe more strongly that Clinton should personally apologize to Lewinsky. Women are more likely to be undecided. Blacks are much less critical of the former president than whites and other minority voters are.
Seventy-five percent (75%) of Republicans and a plurality (48%) of voters not affiliated with either major party see Clinton as a sexual predator. Democrats are almost evenly divided on the question, but 30% are undecided.
Sixty-four percent (64%) of voters who say Clinton is a sexual predator believe he should apologize personally to Lewinsky. Among voters who say the former president is a victim of his political opponents, just 21% say a personal apology is in order.
In a survey three years ago, only 28% of voters expressed a favorable opinion of Lewinsky, and 69% said the 22-year-old intern’s relationship with the 49-year-old president was a consensual one between two adults.
Although Democrats strongly defended Clinton from the sexual allegations at the time of his presidency, several prominent Democrats have been more critical of him in recent months in this period of heightened sensitivity to sexual harassment. Most voters, however, don’t think there is more sexual harassment now; they just believe the media is covering it more.
Voters also tend to think most politicians who have been forced to resign over allegations of sexual harassment are likely to successfully resume their political careers within five years.
Fifty-six percent (56%) of women say they or someone they know has experienced sexual harassment at work.
Fired FBI Director James Comey charged in a TV interview in April that Donald Trump is “morally unfit” to be president, and voters agree that Trump and Bill Clinton are two of a kind as far as morality is concerned.
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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on June 7 and 10, 2018 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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