Poll: Voters don't believe Trump and Clinton's promises

(Image credit: Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)

published 2 June 2016

Donald Trump pledges to build a border wall and make Mexico pay for it. Hillary Clinton assures us she'll rein in Wall Street and limit the influence of money in politics. Voters: Eh, probably not.

So finds a new Quinnipiac University poll which reveals most Americans have pretty low expectations for presidential campaign promises. Only one in four believe Trump will successfully build the wall, while a majority say he will either attempt and fail or not try at all.

Voters were even more pessimistic about Clinton's goals, with 56 percent saying she would not try to curb Wall Street and 63 percent doubting she'd try to reform campaign finance. "No matter which candidate you pick," said Quinnipiac's Tim Malloy, "you can cut the cynicism with a knife."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.