Mitch Perry
A new Quinnipiac poll released on Thursday shows no front-runner in the Republican Party race for president, with five candidates tied in the lead with 10 percent support – Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Dr. Ben Carson and Mike Huckabee.
The second five candidates who would qualify for the first presidential debate to be broadcast by Fox News in August are: Rand Paul at 7 percent, Ted Cruz at 6 percent, Donald Trump at 5 percent, Chris Christie at 4 percent, and Carly Florina and John Kasich tied for tenth place with 2 percent support.
But in direct one-on-one matches with Hillary Clinton, only Rubio and Paul come close to the former Secretary of State. In a general election matchup, Clinton gets 46 percent of American voters to 42 percent for Paul and 45 percent of voters to 41 percent for Rubio. Here are the other direct matchups with GOP candidates:
- 46 – 37 percent over Christie;
- 47 – 40 percent over Huckabee;
- 47 – 37 percent over Bush;
- 46 – 38 percent over Walker;
- 48 – 37 percent over Cruz;
- 50 – 32 percent over Trump.
One very negative statistic for Clinton in the poll shows that by a 53-39 percent margin, American voters say she is not honest and trustworthy. However, they also say by a 60-37 percent margin that she has leadership qualities.
“Can you get low marks on honesty and still be a strong leader? Sure you can,” says Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. Malloy said. “Hillary Clinton crushes her democratic rivals and keeps the GOP hoard at arm’s length.”
Some other interesting tidbits from the national poll: While 21 percent of Republican voters say there is “no way” they can support Donald Trump if he is the GOP’s nominee in 2016, Jeb Bush comes in next at 17 percent. Fifteen percent of Republicans say they could not support a Chris Christie candidacy.
On the Democratic Party side, Mrs. Clinton leads Bernie Sanders by a 57-15 percent margin. Vice President Joe Biden, who is not running as of yet, comes in with 9 percent support.
In the race for the House of Representatives, 39 percent of American voters say they would vote for a Democrat in their district, while 36 percent a Republican. In states which have Senate races (such as Florida), 42 percent would vote Democratic and 35 percent would vote Republican.
The poll was conducted from May 19-26. Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,711 registered voters nationwide with a margin of error of +/- 2.4 percentage points. The survey includes 679 Republicans with a margin of error of +/- 3.8 percentage points and 748 Democrats with a margin of error of +/- 3.6 percentage points.
