Poll: voters less likely to support Trump after comments about Khan family

Attacking a Gold Star family who spoke against him at the Democratic National Convention damaged Donald Trump’s standing with a swath of voters, according to a new poll from Morning Consult.

More than a third of voters said they’re less likely to vote for Trump after hearing his comments about Khizr and Ghazala Khan, whose son Humayun Khan, 27, died in 2004 in Iraq while serving as a captain in the U.S. Army. Captain Khan was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star.

Khizr Khan, with his wife at his side, gave a moving tribute to his son in a speech before the DNC and said if it were up to Trump, his son never would have been allowed into the U.S. The Khans are Muslim immigrants of Pakistani descent. Khan questioned whether Trump had ever read the U.S. Constitution and said the Republican nominee has “sacrified nothing, and no one.”

Trump responded to the criticism by alleging that Hillary Clinton’s speech writer provided Khan his words and that Ghazala Khan was not permitted to speak. (She later said she declined an invitation to speak because it is still too emotionally difficult to do so.)

“I was viciously attacked by Mr. Khan at the Democratic Convention. Am I not allowed to respond? Hillary voted for the Iraq war, not me!” Trump said in a tweet. Rather than let it go, Trump fired off another tweet: “Mr. Khan, who does not know me, viciously attacked me from the stage of the DNC and is now all over T.V. doing the same - Nice!”

The Morning Consult poll found that 51 percent of those surveyed agreed with Khan’s statement that Trump has “sacrificed nothing, and no one.”

The pollsters also found that Trump’s remarks encouraging the Russians to try to find Clinton’s deleted emails did not sit well with voters. Forty-percent said the comment gave them a less favorable view of Trump.

The full report on the poll can be found here: Morning Consult poll

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