A majority of American voters, and many members of the Democratic Party, would prefer a fresh face running for president in 2016.
A new poll from Rasmussen Reports found that 54 percent of likely voters believe that the Democratic Party should find a candidate that has never run for president in the past. Only 22 percent believe they should run a candidate who has already run. 23 percent were undecided.
The poll went on to say that 44 percent of likely Democratic voters believed that the party should nominate a candidate that has already run in the past. The poll found that 36 percent of likely Democratic voters believe the party needs a fresh face and 21 percent are undecided.
Although this might sound like bad news for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is favored to gain the Democratic Party’s nomination in 2016, she has retained her personal popularity with likely Democratic voters. The poll reported that 84 percent of the Democrats polled had a favorable opinion of her, but 56 percent of unaffiliated voters hold the opposite view.
Clinton has been at the center of a number of scandals in the last few years. The latest one being the use of a single pane of glass to conduct official government business while secretary of state. Although many of Secretary Clinton’s problems are minor, at this point, they are accumulating.
H. Boyd Brown, a member of the Democratic National Committee, told RT that Clinton’s popularity will decrease as press scrutiny during the campaign increases, “Nobody down here wants a coronation. We need options. Who knows what could happen. It’s always good to have more than one candidate running.”
“Those aren’t some tabloid scandals,” he continued. “Those are job-related, national-security-related issues that matter.”
Brown supports former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley for president. Although Clinton is the undisputed front runner in the 2016 Democratic nomination, other candidates include Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Vice President Joe Biden, former Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, current Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and O’Malley.
All of these candidates could be considered ‘fresh faces’ in a presidential run and they do not have the same type of problems that Secretary Clinton seems to be troubled by. However, none of them have been the break out candidate that Barack Obama was in 2008, the last time that Secretary Clinton ran for president.
So far, there has been no serious opposition within the Democratic Party’s ranks to compete with Clinton in the primary. This could actually be a negative point during the primary if she is not challenged on subjects that could come back to haunt her during the national election.
However, unless a major scandal erupts or a candidate similar to Obama (or even Bill Clinton in 1992) comes forward and catches the nation’s attention, Clinton will be the Democratic Party’s candidate for president in 2016 and she will need to minimize her troubles and maximize her appeal across a broad swathe of voters, both from the Democratic Party and Independents to capture the White House.