“HERE she is!” shouted Bill Nelson, turning from the podium, with a sweep of his senatorial arm, to an empty walkway, where Hillary Clinton was supposed to be. The small crowd, gathered in an exhibition hall in Kissimmee, central Florida, on August 8th gamely cheered the empty stage, but with a hint of surprise and, when it remained empty, confusion. “I’m with her!” banners weakly fluttered—but where was she? By the time the Democratic nominee, wearing a bright orange trouser suit (which instantly recalled the “Hillary for Prison” badges for sale outside her Republican rival’s rallies), emerged and hotfooted it to the podium, the Floridian crowd was audibly running out of puff.

A visiting Martian might be surprised to learn, on the basis of Mrs Clinton’s rallies, that she is a strong favourite for the presidency. As The Economist went to press, she led Donald Trump by eight percentage points in an average of recent polls, by a similar margin in several important swing states, including Virginia and Pennsylvania, and her lead was growing. Groups that have not voted Democratic in decades, such as college-educated whites, are flocking to her. So are some Republicans, including a good few of the 50 Republican security gurus who denounced Mr Trump on August 8th. All are repelled by him, which is no wonder. In a speech in North Carolina on August 9th Mr Trump appeared to ponder Mrs Clinton’s assassination: “If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks,” he goaded the crowd, “although the Second Amendment people—maybe there is, I don’t know.” Yet it is still striking how little Mrs Clinton, America’s probable next president, is loved.

The “enthusiasm” of her supporters is another measure on which she leads: 51% of Democrats says they are enthusiastic about the election, compared with 41% of Republicans. Yet the word does not seem to describe the feelings of all that many Clinton supporters: they are “respectful of” and “convinced by” her, but not gushing. In interviews with a score at Kissimmee, all said they admired her (though some had reservations) and were confident she would beat Mr Trump, whom they loathed. But most struggled to name a quality they especially liked in her. Some seemed surprised by the question.

“Her husband was one of the best presidents we’ve had,” offered Max, a dental assistant. “I just think she’s the best choice,” said Greg, a retired mechanic. Others worried about Mrs Clinton’s reputation for shadiness, exacerbated by the undying scandal over her furtive e-mail arrangements as secretary of state: “I was very disappointed by her,” said Hallie, a retired civil servant. The strongest endorsements were for what Mrs Clinton represents, as a woman and, especially, as the anti-Trump candidate. “I was raised a Republican,” said Amanda, a student. “But I’m gay, I’m young, I’m a woman, how can I not vote for her?” “She isn’t a good candidate,” said Neil, a retired obstetrician, wearing a T-shirt stamped with a swastika bearing Mr Trump’s name. “But I can live with her.”

Dig into Mrs Clinton’s stellar polling figures, and there is worse than ambivalence. Almost 60% of voters say they are “dissatisfied” with both candidates; 56% of college-educated whites are “anxious” about the prospect of her as president; almost 70% of voters do not find her trustworthy. Perhaps this does not matter; voters like Mr Trump even less. Yet her unpopularity is at the least liable to make the next three months more nerve-racking, given the disaster a Trump victory would represent for America, than they might otherwise be. It is also a poor basis for a presidency.

How poor, may depend on quite what is behind Mrs Clinton’s struggle. She blames it on her awkwardness as a campaigner: “Through all these years of public service, the ‘service’ part has always come easier to me than the ‘public’ part,” she said in her convention speech last month. That was a bit disingenuous: had she been less slippery in her e-mail arrangements, she would be less mistrusted. Yet her clumsy political skills clearly do not help.

She is an amazingly poor orator, considering her long record and her easy charm in private, with a default shouting mode that would grate less if she would at least shout in the right places. “It’s so exciting to have this chance to talk to all of YOOOO!”she thundered in Kissimmee. Having little flair for the big narrative, she can be similarly poor at convincing voters she understands and will act on their worries. Her response to almost any problem is to spout policy, which is admirably pragmatic, but, as in the economic plan of action she delivered in Kissimmee, can sound aloof. There is no quick fix to the stagnant wages, wrought by technological and other change, she referred to, and most voters know it. By describing the problem thoughtfully, including the brighter future that technology may well bring, she might nonetheless have provided reassurance. Instead, she harped back to the different world of her father’s working life, half a century ago, then rattled off policies—infrastructure investment, vocational training and the like—that would not begin to go far enough to achieve the transformation she implausibly promises.