A lack of patience with the "same old" political elite could play nicely into the hands of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, according to Mary-Jo Jacobi, former assistant for the U.S. secretary of commerce.
Jacobi - formerly an aide to President Ronald Reagan who also worked for the administration of President George H W Bush - believes that the U.S. is facing a "daunting prospect either way" with the two candidates but believes that Trump has a major benefit over his Democrat rival.
"I think that Donald Trump has one big advantage with respect to the Republican Party and that advantage is called Hillary Clinton. The rank and file of the Republican Party, the people who will vote, the people who will turn out on November 8 do not want Hillary Clinton as president," she told CNBC Friday.
"They are tired of the Clintons, they are tired of the same old, same old scandal a week sort of thing. And they do want something different. I don't know if they wanted something quite as different as what they look like they are going to get."
Trump accepted the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday evening, completing a stunning rise from billionaire sideshow to standard bearer of a major American party. Standing in front of a row of American flags, "TRUMP" emblazoned behind in white letters on a gold background, Trump said he "humbly and gratefully" accepted the GOP nomination.
There were elements of his speech that harked back to early Ronald Reagan, according to Jacobi, who believes that voters in America might be choosing between "the lesser of the two evils."
"Trump and his advisers see us in a different time (than the days of Reagan), and we are in a different time. A time of great uncertainty, a time of great fear and I think the most telling thing that Donald Trump did last night was he didn't promise people a bunch of stuff, a bunch of policies, a bunch of giveaway projects," she said.
"He promised them a voice and I think that was extremely powerful, because people in America ... feel unheard and uncared for, disregarded by the power elites."
The 2016 Democratic National Convention takes place next week with Hillary Clinton having the opportunity to speak to the electorate ahead of presidential elections later this year. The main focus for Clinton will be to somehow distance herself from the clutches of Wall Street and the financial elite, according to Peter Trubowitz, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics.
"It's one of the things she really has to do next week ... because that is the general perception," he told CNBC Friday.
"Her problem is to reassure Americans that she can be trusted, that she's credible and ... you're better betting on her than Trump's temperament. And one of the ways to do that is to really push back against Wall Street," he added.
—CNBC's Jacob Pramuk contributed to this article.