A new Democracy Corps poll revealed some very bad news for Republicans as Hillary Clinton leads Mitt Romney by a comfortable margin while she crushes Jeb Bush as voters remain openly hostile to electing another Bush president.
Clinton leads Romney 49%-43%, and she leads Jeb Bush 52%-40%. The voters surveyed for this poll were very opposed to another Bush presidential candidacy as the former Florida governor had a 2 to 1 negative to positive approval rating. Only twenty-one percent gave Bush a positive rating while forty-three percent rated him negatively. Only John Boehner (-27) and Mitch McConnell (-24) had lower net approval ratings than Bush (-22) in this poll.
According to Democracy Corps (D):
Riding both an improving political context for Democrats and a more favorable demography in a presidential year election, Hillary Clinton opens with a six point lead over Mitt Romney and double that margin over Jeb Bush. Both parties are unusually consolidated at this very early point in the election cycle with 87 to 95 percent support for their nominees. But Clinton holds an early edge among Independent voters (44 – 39 percent combining Bush and Romney trial heats). More broadly, she builds her margin on strong support among ascendant voters including youth (67 – 25 percent in the combined measure), people of color (77 – 16 percent) and unmarried women (62 – 33 percent). There is a significant and predictable gender gap here (16 points). As has consistently been the case in recent presidential elections, the marriage gap among women is bigger (22 points).
The coalition that elected Obama in 2008 and 2012 remains in place, despite the setback in 2014. Along with Clinton’s impressive support among white college educated women (56 percent Clinton, 39 percent Republican candidate), this coalition is big enough to produce a national win in 2016. The key tactical issue now is whether Clinton can protect and grow this support, and if she can produce a large enough win to recover Democratic losses from the last cycle.
The Democracy Corps poll reveals that the rising Obama dynamic that has been seen in other polls is lifting Hillary Clinton while keeping the Democratic coalition in place for 2016. Mitt Romney’s decent poll numbers are attributable to the fact that the Republican Party has no front runner, which makes the most recognizable name the person that conservative voters are most likely to select at this early stage of the process.
It is clear that voters are not ready for another Bush to be president. Republicans are delusional if they think that they can separate Jeb Bush from the damage that his brother did to the country. The message from this poll is that Hillary Clinton is still in a strong position to be elected president. Mitt Romney isn’t the answer, and a Jeb Bush candidacy could be a total disaster for the Republican Party.
Obama’s growing popularity is not only helping the Democratic Party, but it is setting the stage for potentially another historic Democratic presidential victory in 2016.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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