Talk Elections

When it comes to general election match ups Hillary Clinton leads the Republicans we tested against her by margins ranging from 4 to 7 points. Chris Christie comes the closest at 46/42, followed by Rand Paul at 49/43 and then Marco Rubio at 49/42 and Paul Ryan at 50/43. We've consistently found that Christie would be the strongest Republican candidate but the problem for him is that Obama voters (42/24) like him better than Romney voters (36/31), which could making securing the nomination a problem.

Joe Biden does on average 6 points worse than Hillary Clinton in general election match ups against the Republicans. He leads Rubio (46/44), Ryan (48/45), and Paul (47/43), but by narrower margins than Clinton in all three cases. And he actually trails Christie by a pretty large margin at 49/40.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_4313.pdf

Clinton 46%
Christie 42%

Clinton 49%
Paul 43%

Clinton 49%
Rubio 42%

Clinton 50%
Ryan 43%

Christie 49%
Biden 40%

Biden 47%
Paul 43%

Biden 46%
Rubio 44%

Biden 48%
Ryan 45%

Christie we love you!

()

favorable/unfavorable ratings:

Christie 39/28% for +11%
Clinton 50/42% for +8%
Rubio 35/30% for +5%
Ryan 42/39% for +3%
Warren 23/22% for +1%
Paul 36/37% for -1%
Martinez 14/17% for -3%
Jindal 24/28% for -4%
Patrick 11/15% for -4%
Warner 11/15% for -4%
O'Malley 7/13% for -6%
Biden 40/47% for -7%
Bush 30/37% for -7%
Gillibrand 11/18% for -7%
Schweitzer 5/13% for -8%
Santorum 27/41% for -14%
Cuomo 22/36% for -14%
Perry 24/41% for -17%

Christie is actually more popular with Democrats than Republicans:

Christie fav/unfav:
Dems: 42/22% for +20%
Reps: 39/30% for +9%
Indies: 37/31% for +6%

Whereas Clinton's popularity comes more from her huge numbers among Democrats:

Clinton fav/unfav:
Dems: 87/8% for +79%
Reps: 17/74% for -57%
Indies: 42/47% for -5%

If Christie's name recognition was as high as Clinton's he'd probably be tied with or even slightly ahead of Clinton.

Biden, Clinton, and Cuomo all have huge gender gaps in their favorability.  Much bigger than any of the Republicans.

Clinton fav/unfav:
men: 45/50% for -5%
women: 55/34% for +21%

Rubio has (barely) net positive favorability among Hispanics.  The only other Republican with net positive favorability among Hispanics is Christie.

Rubio fav/unfav:
Hispanics 39/38% for +1%
whites 36/29% for +7%

Certainly not a terrible result for Republicans - Clinton certainly isn't invincible like some on here would like to believe, though it's an uphill climb.

JUNK POLL! (;

Its nice to not have polling threads derailed into those silly arguments. But I suspect in 2016 the poll truthers will be back

And there lies the problem with Christie. They will never nominate a moderate New Jersey Republican.

Christie, or someone in his mold, are the only ones capable of winning an election in 2016, barring terrible economic conditions. Your party will not allow it though.

She is the only one with a favorable rating at or above 50%. In fact she is the only one with a favorability rating even close to 50%!

The Republicans are going to need someone with the political skills of Barack Obama to beat her in the general election should she be the nominee.  Who could that be?

Ronald Reagan is no longer available. 

It's partially just a consequence of her being the only one with >90% name recognition.  If Christie had the same name recognition as Hillary Clinton, he'd be at 50% favorability too!  Obviously, once the campaign gets started, some of these other candidates will build on their current name recognition, and the GOP nominee, whoever he turns out to be, will have name recognition comparable to Clinton by Election Day 2016.

Not to say that that nominee's favorability will match Clinton's on election day, but your 1-to-1 comparison of the favorable number at this point seems pretty silly.

I wouldn't assume that just yet. The founders of the Tea Party themselves have admitted that the hyperpartisanship craze is over.

Too bad Republican primary voters don't.