Immediately following the reelection of President Obama in 2012, talk of elections seemed to wind down and the predictions of news pundits seemed to finally cease. But soon after, many began to speculate about the possible candidacies for the 2016 national election. Now, with the primaries just one year away, three possible candidates have surfaced: Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, and Chris Christie.
The most popular potential candidate is Democrat Hillary Clinton. In a McClatchy-Marist poll conducted in March, 60% of democrats would want Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic nominee. And according to a poll conducted by Quinnipiac University in March, Clinton would lead Scott Walker by nine points, Jeb Bush by three, Chris Christie by seven and Rand Paul by six in the national election.
What is the secret behind Hillary Clinton’s favorability? It is most likely her appeal to women voters. According to a Washington Post poll, women say they would support Clinton by a striking sixty-one to thirty-three percent.
Anina Ku ‘18 states, “I think Hillary Clinton is the most viable option for president. She has been a senator, a first lady, a secretary of state, and a presidential candidate. She has the most experience and I think that right now she is the only candidate who is offering solutions to the nation’s biggest problems.” A small barrier to Clinton is her slight disapproval among male voters, who tend to vote more Republican. In the same Washington Post poll, fifty-four percent of white men opposed her becoming president.
Hillary Clinton has not yet announced whether or not she will run, but if she does, she has a fairly good chance of winning the election, and an even better one of winning the primaries. However, Clinton knows how variable the polls are: in the start of February 2007, she held a 20 point lead over Barack Obama, but she ended up losing against him in the primaries.
The second most popular candidate is the Republican Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush. Though his poll numbers are not as high as Clinton’s, most Republicans see Bush as their most viable nominee; twenty-three percent of Republicans surveyed in a CNN December 2014 poll favored him as the nominee, as opposed to the second most favorable choice, Chris Christie, with thirteen percent.
Many view Jeb Bush as a moderate voice in the Republican Party who can contend with Hillary Clinton. George Islin ’17 states that “Jeb Bush seems to be the most favorable Republican candidate – he’s more moderate than some of the other Republican candidates, and I believe he would make an honest, stern president.”
Chris Christie, the Governor of New Jersey, is another potential candidate. Although he has never announced his bid for candidacy, he has spent nearly 40% of his time outside of New Jersey unofficially campaigning—a sign that he is serious about running. Many New Jerseyans, like Bryan Wen ’18, find Christie’s down-to-earth approach very favorable: “I like Chris Christie’s down-to-earth approach toward many issues. He does not waste any time in honestly expressing his thoughts; this is why I prefer Christie over the other candidates.”
One enormous barrier Christie will have to face is the disapproval of many fellow Republicans, many of whom think that Christie falls too far left on the political ideology spectrum. In a Rasmussen poll, thirty-one percent of Republicans said that Christie is their least favorite candidate.
So who would win? Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, or someone else? As of right now, the polls seem to suggest that Clinton will. However, two years is ample time for the numbers to change. The election may boil down to who fundraises best, or who is most influential, or who is best at debating, or who makes the biggest political mistake. Just as it was with the 2008 national election, it is too early to definitively decide the outcome of the 2016 election.