PPP-2016: Hillary Clinton vs. Chris Christie is the matchup

[Tender Branson]

Romney up big, Clinton and Christie have early 2016 leads

PPP's newest- and perhaps final- poll on the national GOP race finds Mitt Romney running away with 54% of the Republican vote to 24% for Newt Gingrich and 14% for Ron Paul. Those numbers don't suggest Gingrich will have much of an ability to compete in any of the remaining primaries. Romney's net favorability is now +42 at 65/23, a 23 point improvement from a month ago when he was at +19 (54/35).

Romney is now winning all of the groups that he had struggled with over the course of the primary season. He's up 47-35 on Gingrich with Tea Partiers, 50-30 with Evangelicals, and 48-33 with 'very conservative' voters. The most striking number in the poll may be Romney's 72/16 favorability with Tea Party voters. That's definitely indicative of a party base ready to get on the same page.

Since the primary's gotten boring and there's a glut of Obama/Romney polls out there we decided to skip ahead and take a super early look at the 2016 primaries.

The Democratic nomination at this point is Hillary Clinton's for the taking if she wants it. She has an amazing 86/10 favorability rating with Democratic voters. In a dream field Clinton gets 57% to 14 for Joe Biden, 6% for Elizabeth Warren, 5% for Andrew Cuomo, 3% for Russ Feingold, 2% for Mark Warner, and 1% each for Martin O'Malley and Brian Schweitzer.

Clinton's appeal to the various different constituencies of the Democratic Party is pretty universal. She's at 58% with 'very liberal' voters, 56% with moderates, 60% with women, 52% with men, 59% with whites, 54% with African Americans, 51% with Hispanics, 64% with seniors, and 44% with young voters.
If Clinton didn't run but Biden did he'd be the leader with 32% to 18% for Cuomo, 8% for Warren, 6% for Feingold, 2% each for O'Malley and Warner, and 1% for Schweitzer. Biden's favorability is 70/21.

And in Biden and Clintonless field Cuomo leads with 27% to 9% for Warren, 8% for Feingold, 4% each for O'Malley and Warner, and 2% for Schweitzer. Cuomo is the only candidate in that version of the field with better than 50% name recognition, boasting a 32/24 favorability rating. Feingold and Warren each have about 45% name recognition while O'Malley, Warner, and Schweitzer are all pretty much completely unknown.

We also looked at the 2016 Republican field if Romney is not the nominee again. There's a clear top tier consisting of Chris Christie at 21% and Mike Huckabee and Jeb Bush at 17%. Rick Santorum's further back at 12% and Marco Rubio at 10%, Paul Ryan at 7%, Rand Paul at 4%, and Bobby Jindal at 3% round out the names we tested. It seems unlikely Santorum would be the front runner in a repeat bid.

Other notes on those numbers:

-Bush is the only Republican with a greater than 70% favorability rating, at 71/13.

-Most of the big potential GOP 2016 names have more than 50% name recognition- there are a lot more known quantities in the mix for Republicans that cycle than there are for the Democrats.

-GOP voters clearly see Rand Paul, who has a solid 42/20 favorability rating, in a different light than his dad, who's at 36/49.

-Huckabee is the most popular potential 2016 hopeful besides Bush with a 69/15 favorability rating and would start out with an edge among Evangelicals at 24% to 16% for Santorum.

-Christie has a double digit lead with voters under 45, a group the GOP's had trouble appealing to over the last few election cycles.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2012/04/romney-up-big-clinton-and-christie-have-early-2016-leads.html#more

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_National_417.pdf

[Lief]

Hahaha Rand Paul sucks.

[cavalcade]

Not particularly relevant of course of course, but:

Rand (and obviously many others) has better favorables among Rs than Cuomo has among Ds.  I wonder if 2016:Cuomo::2012:Romney.

"Very conservatives" split basically evenly among Bush/Christie/Huck/Rubio/Santorum, it's the somewhats and moderates who boost the first 3.

If Hill and Biden don't run, the #2 Dem candidate is someone who has never (yet) held elective office (Warren).

[IDS Legislator Alfred F. Jones]

Someone needs to poll the general for the matchup.

[Rep Pyrofox]

We'll be laughing pretty hard at this poll in a few years, I'm sure.
Interesting, though quite expected, that Cuomo would lead if Clinton and Biden declined.
I guess time will tell if this poll is telling of the future in any context.

[ShadowOfTheWave]

Hillary Clinton is an amazing person, and would make a fantastic president, though I disagree with her on social issues. Competent, but not compromising for the sake of politics, unlike her husband and Obama. Biden is a good guy, don't know how competent he'd be. Cuomo is a liberal social engineer, and I would not consider voting for him.

[asexual trans victimologist]

Hillary Clinton is an amazing person, and would make a fantastic president, though I disagree with her on social issues. Competent, but not compromising for the sake of politics, unlike her husband and Obama. Biden is a good guy, don't know how competent he'd be. Cuomo is a liberal social engineer, and I would not consider voting for him.

'Liberal' is an interesting term to apply to Cuomo because unlike most of the people in the United States to whom it is applied it is actually true of him in most meaningful senses, including several aspects that are why I couldn't in good conscience fully support him either.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Cuomo would be an even more vulnerable frontrunner than Mittens. He won't have as opponents jokes like Cain, Perry and Gingrich.
And Democratic voters have shown to be much less forgiving when it comes to candidates who hold positions that are out of the liberal mainstream, as Hillary learned the hard way.

[cavalcade]

I'm somewhat amused at the fact that Dems begged Hillary to run in 2004, turned her down in 2008, and will be begging her to run in 2016.

[Mr. Morden]

Apologies, but I can't read polls in paragraph form:

Clinton 57%
Biden 14%
Warren 6%
Cuomo 5%
Feingold 3%
Warner 2%
O'Malley 1%
Schweitzer 1%

Christie 21%
Bush 17%
Huckabee 17%
Santorum 12%
Rubio 10%
Ryan 7%
Rand Paul 4%
Jindal 3%

[oakvale]

Hillary Clinton is an amazing person, and would make a fantastic president, though I disagree with her on social issues. Competent, but not compromising for the sake of politics, unlike her husband and Obama. Biden is a good guy, don't know how competent he'd be. Cuomo is a liberal social engineer, and I would not consider voting for him.

Republicans suddenly deciding they like Hillary Clinton after all has been a hilarious side effect of her appointment to a high-profile and apolitical government position.

[ShadowOfTheWave]

Hillary Clinton is an amazing person, and would make a fantastic president, though I disagree with her on social issues. Competent, but not compromising for the sake of politics, unlike her husband and Obama. Biden is a good guy, don't know how competent he'd be. Cuomo is a liberal social engineer, and I would not consider voting for him.

Republicans suddenly deciding they like Hillary Clinton after all has been a hilarious side effect of her appointment to a high-profile and apolitical government position.

I've always liked Hillary Clinton and have only recently become a Republican. Most of the shift in favor to Hillary from conservatives happened when she ran against Obama and the liberal base and media turned on her.

[Mr. Morden]

Btw, while I don't think there were every any primary polls for 2008 conducted this early in the cycle, none of the late 2004 / early 2005 polls had Clinton leading for the 2008 nomination by this much.  Most of them had her somewhere between 30% and 50%:

link

For example, Ipsos Dec. 17-19, 2004:

Clinton 33%
Kerry 19%
Edwards 15%
Clark 11%

If Clinton does run for the 2016 nomination, is there anyone with a hope of matching her in the top tier, like Obama did in 2008?

[RogueBeaver]

I'm OK with Hillary as a person, but would never vote for her. Also like Christie, but too squishy in a primary for me.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

I'm only 20, so it's not like I have much of a political history... but I pretty much became a Republican sympathizer after Hillary lost the 2008 primaries. I always considered myself an independent, so I looked for who I thought would be the strongest leader. To me, Hillary was prepared, strong, and unapologetic. I knew exactly what an Obama presidency would look like if he managed to beat HRC, and I was spot-on.

Since Hillary's '08 loss, I've been pretty firmly Republican--I guess the talking points have stuck, because I wouldn't really call myself an independent anymore. What's more, I don't know if Hillary would've been my top choice if I could go back and start over. I really was a Hillary nut--she got me into politics. But I kind of regret that I supported McCain by default. After learning more, I really think he could have been a great president.

Moving on though, if Hillary was on the ballot in 2016... I would have to make a pretty heart-wrenching decision. I could support her. I could also support Bush or Christie. It would be tough, and I don't think I'd be as passionate for any one candidate as I was in 2008 and 2012 (Clinton and Romney, respectively). If Clinton wasn't the Democratic nominee though, it would be easy.

[Vosem]

Meh; Christie's numbers aren't really that impressive. A lead is a lead, of course, but three years before campaigning starts, with 2 challengers within 5% and 3 within 10%, is not insurmountable at all; here is a list of all candidates that actually ended up running that have held a 4-point national lead in the 2012 Republican primary in at least one poll (in reverse chronological order):
- Mitt Romney
- Rick Santorum
- Newt Gingrich
- Herman Cain
- Rick Perry
- Michele Bachmann

Six people. On the other hand, a 43-point lead before campaigning even begins is essentially insurmountable without scandal. And H Clinton has been in politics too long for that.

[Senator Clarence]

There she goes.... there she goes again...racing thru my brain...AND I JUST CAN'T CONTAINNNN THIS FEELING THAT REMAINS!!!!!

GO HILLARY!

[I Can't Get That Sound You Make, Out Of My Head]

The big question is....will Hillary run?

It's hard to deny interest if she's this far ahead, but that didn't stop Cuomo snr....

[HagridOfTheDeep]

It depends what you believe.

Either she's legitimately tired (and tired of politics) and that's why she'll step down as SecState after January... OR she wants to disassociate herself from another term of Obama so she has a chance in 2016.

I'm not sure what I believe. Both seem totally viable. Hopefully she nails down a signature haircut before then. This experimentation has been disappointing.

[Cobbler]

Darn, I had hoped that Huntsman would have been polled too.

[Mr. Morden]

Most polls also have HRC's favorability rating among the general electorate as being north of 65%.  I imagine that she'll do quite well in general election polls once those start up.  Which means that there will be a relentless string of "Will she run?" stories in the next few years, no matter how many denials she gives.

If she does run, I wonder if almost all the other Democratic contenders will bow out and wait for next time.  I'd guess she'd get at least one or two major challengers from the left though, a la Bill Bradley in 2000.

Also:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/christie-2016-comes-from-nowhere-to-win-republican,27904/

[Alaska Thunderfvck]

I'm still not swayed by Hillary. I dunno if I could support her if she ran in 2016.

[Chris B]

I'm still not swayed by Hillary. I dunno if I could support her if she ran in 2016.

I'm not either. I personally hope she doesn't run. I think a fresh face would be our best chance.

[oakvale]

I'm still not swayed by Hillary. I dunno if I could support her if she ran in 2016.

I'm not either. I personally hope she doesn't run. I think a fresh face would be our best chance.

^ This. Although I really doubt she'll run. Maybe that's wishful thinking, though.

[For Oklahoma]

Ugh Rand Paul has no chance.