We’re more than 20 months from the first Republican presidential primary, and the pool of candidates is inchoate. Pollsters are asking voters about 10 candidates, none of whom registers higher than 20 percent support in earlystate or national surveys. It’s the most divided GOP field at this point in the cycle since the parties reformed the nomination process in the 1970s.
But on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton has the field pretty much to herself, and there’s little sign that party leaders are encouraging others to run (as they did in 2008). Despite the fact that she hasn’t declared her intention to run yet, she’s polling at 60 to 70 percent — the strongest position for any non-incumbent in the modern era and 30 points higher than at this point in the 2008 cycle.
Early polls often don’t foretell the eventual margins of the primaries, something that shouldn’t be surprising. But what if Clinton in fact wins the Democratic nomination in a landslide, while the Republican nominee does so only after a long and close race? As Karen Tumulty and Robert Costareported in The Washington Post, GOP elders believe that scenario would lead to problems for their eventual candidate. Are they right? Could a Democratic sweep and a drawn-out Republican contest offer insight into the outcome of the general election?
Clinton Is Polling Like an Incumbent, And That Could Help Her in 2016 | FiveThirtyEight
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