The newest national poll by Public Policy Polling shows Hillary Clinton with a wide lead both among Democratic primary voters and against most of the big Republican names thought to be top contenders for their party’s presidential nomination in 2016.
Fifty-seven percent of Democrats want Clinton to be their candidate in 2016. Only Joe Biden at 16 percent also hits double digits. Others are very weak: Andrew Cuomo and Elizabeth Warren at 4 percent– I at least can recognize their names. Then there are a bunch of no-names: Martin O’Malley at 3 percent, Deval Patrick and Mark Warner at 2 percent, and Kirsten Gillibrand and Brian Schweitzer at 1 percent.
If Clinton and Biden sit it out, it’s an incredibly wide open race. Cuomo gets 19 percent, Warren 16 percent, O’Malley 7 percent, Patrick 6 percent, Gillibrand 5 percent, Warner 4 percent and Schweitzer 2 percent but the big winner is ‘undecided’ at 40 percent.
Clinton looks pretty strong in very early general election match ups as well. She has 14 point leads over Paul Ryan (53/39), Jeb Bush (51/37), and Marco Rubio (also 51/37).