The controversy around email practices threatens to define Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy, a new Gallup survey said on Wednesday.
Though Clinton has offered detailed policies and stances on a variety of issues, the survey said after interviewing about 750 Americans the word "email" or relevant expressions dominate voters' recall of news about Clinton.
According to the survey, the word "email" came up 329 times when interviewees were asked to offer an opinion of Clinton, Xinhua reported.
There were also 83 mentions of "server", referring to the private email server established at Clinton's residence, on which about 60,000 emails, including work-related ones, were stored while she was serving as the top US diplomat.
Since the outset of her candidacy, Clinton has made income inequality and benefits for the middle-class. However, the Gallup survey found there were fewer mentions of the substantive themes Clinton has talked about on the campaign trail.
According to the survey, the words "economy" and "the middle class" were mentioned only four times respectively, "gun control" appeared seven times, and even fewer people mentioned "college" and "capital gains tax" despite the candidate's progressive move to court young and middle-class voters.
Though the responses do not necessarily mean voters are unaware of Clinton's policy proposals, the survey said the results suggest that Clinton's attempts to get other messages out to the public were largely drowned out by the media coverage of her private email setup.
