Clinton’s positive rating tops rest of Obama team’s

Last month, I blogged that U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was rated more positively than Secretary Clinton. For Gates, 68 percent of those familiar enough with him to rate him gave him a positive rating, while 62 percent of those familiar with Clinton gave her a positive rating. At the time, I didn’t have complete ...

Last month, I blogged that U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was rated more positively than Secretary Clinton. For Gates, 68 percent of those familiar enough with him to rate him gave him a positive rating, while 62 percent of those familiar with Clinton gave her a positive rating.

Last month, I blogged that U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was rated more positively than Secretary Clinton. For Gates, 68 percent of those familiar enough with him to rate him gave him a positive rating, while 62 percent of those familiar with Clinton gave her a positive rating.

At the time, I didn’t have complete numbers on what percentage of people were familiar with Gates and Clinton. Now I do, and those numbers really change things. Here are numbers from a more recent Harris Poll of 2,681 U.S. adults surveyed online between May 11 and 18:

Hillary Clinton: 50% positive, 33% negative, 17% not familiar enough with her to have an opinion

Robert Gates: 28% positive, 15% negative, 57% not familiar enough with him to have an opinion

If you look only at only responses from people familiar enough to give a rating, then Clinton is 60 percent positive [50/(50+33)], while Gates is 65 percent positive [28/(28+15)]. So in a sense, Gates beats Clinton, but it’s in part because so many people can’t provide an opinion at all.

The news release for the poll notes that it’s "striking" how many people are unfamiliar with Washington’s "key players." Here are the percentages for the other four Obama team members:

Vice President Joe Biden: 32% positive, 36% negative, 31% not familiar

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: 21% positive, 45% negative, 34% not familiar

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke: 19% positive, 24% negative, 57% not familiar

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner: 16% positive, 26% negative, 57% not familiar

Of these six people, Clinton’s 50 percent positive rating was the tops!

Preeti Aroon was copy chief at Foreign Policy from 2009 to 2016 and was an FP assistant editor from 2007 to 2009. Twitter: @pjaroonFP

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