With the customary note of caution about trying to draw too many conclusions from a single data point, it must be said that this week's
ABC/WaPo poll on the 2016 presidential race seemed to confirm the long-held optimism of many Democrats about their prospects for holding onto the White House.
The conventional wisdom, in most corners, has been that Hillary Clinton had the upper hand when paired with any of the leading Republican contenders. But one doubts that either Republicans or Democrats were necessarily prepared to see a respected polling outfit show Clinton staked to a double digit lead over all comers, including the two most recent major Republicans to hint at a bid (Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush).
On any number of levels, this is a very heartening data point for Democrats. Follow me past the jump to see three particular reasons why this poll should give Republicans some qualms, and Democrats some much-needed spring in their step.
CAUSE FOR OPTIMISM #1—The GOP '16 White vote pales in comparison to 2012
From Langer's summary of the polling data:
Each also has the support of half of white voters overall, far fewer than a GOP nominee needs to prevail, given whites’ shrinking share of the country’s population. (Romney won 59 percent of whites and lost the 2012 election nonetheless.)
Digging
into the numbers a bit deeper, we see that the best performance for a GOP frontrunner with white voters goes to Jeb Bush, who leads Hillary Clinton by a 51-44 margin.
That's actually pretty poor, as far as Republicans are concerned. As Langer noted, Mitt Romney won the white vote in 2012 by twenty points. Clinton stays within 3-7 points of the GOP contenders.
Though few are comfortable saying it out loud, this is not a startling finding. Obama did worse among white voters in 2012 than John Kerry did in defeat in 2004. Even in a resounding win in 2008, he lost white voters by 12 points.
Democrats, in general, tend to underperform with white voters (the party got smooshed by 22 points in the November midterms). But President Obama's woes with white voters, perhaps predictably, were slightly more pronounced. In a winning 2012 campaign, he ran behind his winning percentage by 12 points with white voters (51 percent versus 39 percent). Even in a fairly disastrous 2014, the Democrats ran just 7 points behind their vote total (45 percent versus 38 percent).
If Clinton can outperform Obama with white voters, then the GOP has two options, neither of which seem like certainties. They either have to reverse a quarter century of electoral diversification (in 1988, white voters were nearly 90 percent of the electorate; in 2012, it was 72 percent), or they have to do significantly better with voters of color.
Put it this way, to paint a slightly simplified picture of the state of play: (1) Apply the racial dynamics of the 2014 midterms, which artificially favors the GOP tremendously. (2) Give the GOP the shares of the minority vote that they achieved in 2014 (a very good year for them). (3) Give the GOP the best lead among white voters that they achieved in this poll.
Even with all three of these assumptions, two of which are incredibly favorable for the GOP, Clinton would lead the generic Republican by a 53-46 margin.
CAUSE FOR OPTIMISM #2—Jeb may not be the GOP's great white hope
When Jeb Bush began to make serious overtures about seeking the presidency, it was a bit of a seismic event on the red side of the political ledger. Always considered a "first-tier" GOP prospect, he rocketed to a double-digit lead in a late December CNN poll of the GOP primary.
And while Bush trailed Clinton by 13 points (54-41) in that poll, he was the best-in-class, and there was quite a bit of skepticism about the general election trial heats in that CNN poll (it was clearly the most bullish pro-Clinton poll of recent vintage).
This poll, though? No bueno for the former Florida governor. Though the other three candidates tested in both polls (Christie, Paul, and Huckabee) did 4-7 points better than in the CNN poll, Bush's 13-point disadvantage was identical. What's more: any hope that time would heal the brand-name blues for Bush might have been premature. By nearly a four-to-one ratio, registered voters found themselves less likely to vote for Bush based on his family's presidential legacy than more likely to do so. Among Independents, who would seem to be an absolutely vital voting bloc for the GOP nominee (since Democrats have outnumbered Republicans in all but one of the last half-dozen presidential elections), 33 percent said the Bush name made them less likely to vote for Jeb, versus just 8 percent who saw it as a big enough asset to make them more likely to support him.
By way of contrast, the Clinton name is not nearly as large a liability for the Democratic frontrunner. Overall, registered voters were marginally more likely to support (24 percent) Hillary Clinton based on her connection to former President Bill Clinton than they were less likely (16 percent) to do so. It was a net asset for Independents, as well (19-11), though most were inclined not to care one way or another.
CAUSE FOR OPTIMISM #3—The GOP candidates are far from unknown
One of the biggest flaws of early polling is ... well ... it's early. Well-known candidates can enjoy outsized leads over challengers mainly on the basis of name recognition alone. We see it all the time in statewide elections, where a well-known incumbent looks comfortably ahead at the start of the cycle, but watches that lead erode as the challenger becomes a known quantity.
At the risk of coming off as Captain Obvious, that simply is not what is happening here.
A variety of polls released in the past year (the data for which is neatly culled together at Polling Report) had the name recognition for the six candidates polled in this ABC/WaPo poll as follows:
Hillary Clinton (D): 99 percent
Mitt Romney (R): 98 percent
Chris Christie (R): 88 percent
Jeb Bush (R): 82 percent
Mike Huckabee (R): 74 percent
Rand Paul (R): 69 percent
While Clinton is the best known of the presidential aspirants polled, only a fool would argue that the others are somehow unknown. That implies that the Clinton lead is real, and not the function of merely being the known quantity.
One easily overlooked aspect of this poll also speaks to this point: Hillary Clinton is over 50 percent with every GOP contender, and there are very few undecideds.
So, how are we to explain Clinton's outsized lead, despite mostly modest differences in name recognition? The answer is simple: right now, the GOP alternatives are not that well-liked. Rand Paul does the best of the lot, and even he can't break out of the low 30s in terms of favorability. Even in the height of the "Oooh! Buyer's remorse!" polling last year surrounding Mitt Romney (do you remember the "he'd win a rematch!" idiocy?), the 2012 nominee still sported net negative favorabilities in nearly every poll.
CAUTIONARY NOTE: IT'S FREAKING 21 MONTHS FROM ELECTION DAY!
Yeah, yeah ... Captain Obvious strikes again. And I won't bore you with the painful tales of polls past that were way off (though this gem from 1980 has to be the best example), but even a large poll lead in January of the off year is often about as relevant as the identity of the leader of a marathon midway through mile 1.
Make no mistake—as stated earlier, there are some foundational reasons why Republicans should be concerned. Jeb Bush, who might be the best looking potential nominee "on paper", hasn't recovered from being a Bush. Clinton seems to more than hold her own with white voters. And none of their top contenders seem to be very well liked.
However, part of that is undoubtedly a function of a GOP primary duel without a clear top candidate. History tells us, whether the race is congressional, gubernatorial, or presidential, that once a party has a nominee, there is a tendency for hatchets to be buried. That impact, though, is sometimes muted: if you look at 2012, for example, Mitt Romney gets closer after clinching the GOP nomination to President Obama, but the movement is modest, no more than a couple of points on the average. Of course, Romney was already reasonably close to Obama prior to clinching the nod, so that might've muted the benefit to him. We know that, in this ABC/WaPo poll that the prospective GOP contenders only won between 76-81 percent support from Republicans, and only around 60 percent of conservatives. There's little chance that will hold.
That said, even at this very early stage, you'd rather be a Democrat looking at the polling data than a Republican. The GOP might see one of these candidates catch fire, or they may coalesce around someone we don't even see in this poll (the right-wing media had starbursts in their eyes over Scott Walker's Iowa performance this past weekend). But if the polls to-date prove anything, it is that the Democratic frontrunner looks formidable at this early stage.