Photograph by Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks after receiving awards from Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey during a ceremony at the Pentagon on Feb. 14, 2013.
A poll out today by Quinnipiac University shows that Hillary Clinton — former secretary of state, U.S. senator from New York and first lady — is the clear frontrunner for the White House in 2016. That is, if she runs.
The Quinnipiac survey of American voters shows Clinton leading three potential Republican presidential candidates — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio; and Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the 2012 Republican vice-presidential nominee — in head-to-head matchups. Christie runs ahead of two other Democrats, Vice President Joe Biden and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Biden leads both Rubio and Ryan, while Cuomo trails Ryan and ties with Rubio.
“Clinton would start a 2016 presidential campaign with enormous advantages,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac polling institute. “She obviously is by far the best known and her more than 20 years in the public spotlight allows her to create a very favorable impression on the American people.”
Clinton hasn’t given any indication that she wants to run for the White House, and Brown points out that she had very good poll numbers before she did run for president in 2008, only to lose the Democratic nomination to a freshman senator from Illinois, Barack Obama.
The survey of 1,944 registered voters was conducted Feb. 27-March 4 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points.
