The astonishing weakness of Hillary Clinton

Clinton has many advantages over her competitors. But she's still collapsing in the polls.

Hillary Clinton
(Image credit: AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Hillary Clinton is as unpopular as she ever has been. Her favorability ratings have fallen to just 40 percent. Her campaign is already heading south, even though she has serious advantages over everyone else in the campaign, both Democratic and Republican.

Her opponents in the Democratic field do not pose a plausible mathematical threat. Bernie Sanders can attract huge crowds in college towns, but he is going nowhere with the African-American voters who would be key to building an anti-Clinton Democratic primary coalition. Martin O'Malley's record, shaped by his transition from the Baltimore mayoralty to the Maryland statehouse, has made him radioactive to an activist Democratic base that wants criminal justice reform and that winces when a politician like him says, "All Lives Matter." Clinton is thus free to define her agenda apart from them.

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Michael Brendan Dougherty

Michael Brendan Dougherty is senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is the founder and editor of The Slurve, a newsletter about baseball. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, ESPN Magazine, Slate and The American Conservative.