Roughly half of Clinton, Trump supporters are only voting to keep opposing candidate out of office

Nearly half of likely Hillary Clinton voters say they are only supporting her to keep Donald Trump out of the White House — but before Trump backers start cackling, they ought to keep in mind that they're in the same boat. Nearly half of Trump supporters are only backing the Republican candidate in order to keep Clinton out of office.

The uninspiring situation was discovered in a new Reuters/Ipsos survey that claims many voters this election season are only going to the ballot boxes to keep the opposition out of the White House, rather than to get their candidate in. With Trump supporters, a whole 47 percent are voting just to keep Clinton out; by comparison, only 43 percent are voting for Trump because they like his political positions, and only 6 percent because they like Trump personally.

Among likely Clinton voters, 46 percent are voting for her just to keep Trump out of office, with 40 percent backing her because they like her politics and 11 percent because they like her personally.

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The results come from likely voters who were interviewed online between April 29 and May 5, with the margin of error for Trump supporters being plus or minus 5.3 and for Clinton supporters, plus or minus 4.7.