May 14, 2014
By John Zogby
Washington, DC – The Hillary Train Is Leaving the Station and No GOP Candidate Is Catching Up. Last week former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had been giving big statesmanlike speeches and responding to global crises on the eve of releasing a new book of memoirs. She is getting that Old Monica Thing out of the way early. She is going to be a Grandma, the coolest thing in the world.
And she is so far and convincingly ahead of three of the biggest guns the GOP has to offer for 2016 that it is hardly even a horse race at this point. According to the latest nationwide poll by Zogby Analytics (893 likely voters, May 2-3, +/-3 points), Mrs. Clinton leads former Florida Governor Jeb Bush 52%-36%, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul 52% to 35%, and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie 50%-34%. The fact that she hits 50% against all three candidates is significant, as is the size of each of her leads.
What is more convincing about her leads, however, is how she shows the capacity to hold (and even strengthen) the Obama Coalition, even better than Mr. Obama himself.
This becomes clear when we closely examine her hypothetical race against Mr. Bush, whom she leads by 17 points. (In the March poll by Zogby Analytics, Mrs. Clinton led 53% to 32%). Her performance among 18-29 year olds is 60% to 33%, equally as impressive as her 59%-30% among 30-49 year olds. She leads by 5 points (45%-40%) among 50-64 year olds and is pretty much tied among those 65 and older 43%-45% — in every case, a better score than Mr. Obama's in 2012. She captures Democrats 89%-4% and independents 48% to 25%, liberals 92%-2%, moderates 60%-18%, and even gets 17% of conservatives. She holds a 26 point lead among Weekly Wal-Mart Shoppers (58%-32%), 35 points among the Creative Class (who are famously clustered in all of the key battleground states) 61% to 26%, the Investor Class (58%-30%), and among the growing numbers of Social Networkers (61%-25%). Mrs. Clinton leads among NASCAR fans 57% to 32%.
She also pounds Mr. Bush among Hispanics 75%-19% and African Americans 90%-2%.
Is there any good news for Mr. Bush? Short answer: no. He is only receiving 70% support among fellow Republicans and 69% among conservatives. And among that ever shrinking percentage of white voters, he is tied by leading only 45%-43%.
Neither Senator Paul nor Governor Christie can find much to cheer about either. They do about the same among Republican and conservative voters. Mrs. Clinton actually hits 80% against Mr. Paul with Hispanics.
Of course it is early. But at least for today, there is little evidence of either Obama Fatigue or a Benghazi Storm creating barriers to a presidential race by Mrs. Clinton, As always, and in pure Clintonian tradition, if there are any such obstacles, they will come only from either of two people.
