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3 candidates whose backers have crummy credit

Posted at 2:37 PM, Mar 17, 2016
and last updated 2016-03-17 18:25:17-04

Hillary Clinton is number one.

The former First Lady is first on the list of presidential candidates with the most supporters carrying the worst credit scores.  

Nearly 26% of Hillary Clinton supporters have bad credit according to WalletHub's 2016 Presidential Credit Score Survey.  Bad credit is a score below 620.  Up next is Bernie Sanders' supporters at 22% and Donald Trump's at 20%.  

Research analyst Alina Comoreanu said the survey included 765 online participants and took place between March 9 and March 13.

On the opposite end, almost 60% of John Kasich supporters have excellent credit scores.   Kasich boasts the highest percentage of all of the candidates with voters in the excellent range. Anything over 620 is considered excellent.

According to Creditcards.com senior industry analyst Matt Schulz, now is great time to negotiate with banks and try to pay down debt while improving your credit score.  

"People don't realize how much negotiating power they have with their credit card," he said. "If you see a better offer on creditcards.com or on a mailer, go ahead and call your credit card company and see if they can match that offer or beat it.  They'll probably work with you because they don't want to risk losing you to another bank."

Schulz said many banks are offering long-term no interest balance transfers to customers, some for up to 21 months. 

"As long as you don't apply for too may credit cards too often, it's not going to have much of an impact on your credit," said Schulz.

Schulz said having another card could even help your score because of the utilization ratio.  For example, if you have a $5,000 balance on a $10,000 card, you're utilizing 50% of your credit.  Obtaining another card with a $10,000 limit would improve your utilization ratio because instead of using 50 percent of your credit limit, you're utilizing 25 percent.

For WalletHub's complete 2016 Presidential Credit Score Survey, visit their website.