Never Too Early
Who's the Toughest Republican Against Hillary?
Of Jeb, Rubio, Ryan, and Christie, who comes the closest to Hillary?
A new poll is out about 2016. Which of the following do you think comes closest to Hillary Clinton?
a. Jeb Bush
b. Paul Ryan
c. Chris Christie
d. Marco Rubio
It's not even close:
Clinton also would lead three possible GOP candidates -- former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.) -- by margins of 14 percentage points. A matchup against Clinton and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, whom she edged 44 percent to 42 percent, could be much closer.
I'm a little surprised at Jeb's weakness, and I'm mildly surprised Christie is that close. HRC tops 50 against the others, but Christie drags her all the way down to 44, seemingly confirming a poll I saw yesterday finding that Christie is right now more popular among independents and Democrats than he is among Republicans.
That would be an interesting match up, no? Of course, once Christie started acting like a conservative Republican again, he'd lose a lot of that independent/Democratic support.
Making predictions this far out is usually absurd, but it's pretty hard to see how she can lose to any of these people. When conservatives get bug-eyed about the Democrat, they do and say really stupid and offensive things, as some have about HRC recently with respect to her illness, and they offend most normal decent Americans, so I say Democrats need to keep nominating people who make right-wingers apoplectic, and they can't miss.