Phil Ammann
Why are more than a dozen Republicans crowding the 2016 presidential field?
Perhaps because it is the most wide-open field ever, says Susan Page of USA TODAY.
Republican and Republican-leaning voters named 18 prospective GOP candidates in a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll asking an open-ended question about who will be the nominee next year.
Leading the pack, however, was “Undecided” with 45 percent, followed by 2012 candidate Mitt Romney, who came in second at 16 percent. Next was former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at 13 percent.
After that, no other candidate mentioned received double digits: Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
In contrast, the Democratic preference could not be any clearer. With a majority of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters, 51 percent chose former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, with 31 percent undecided. Massachusetts U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, popular with progressives, gets 5 percent. Current Vice President Joe Biden receives only 4 percent.
The Republican contest kicked off this weekend in Des Moines with the Iowa Freedom Summit, a conservative conference underscored by speeches from many of the leading presidential contenders. The summit comes about a year before the Iowa presidential caucuses.
At this point in the race, any polling is simply a gauge of name identification.
Polling this early has “limitations,” according to David Paleologos, director of Boston’s Suffolk Political Research Center.
“The fact is that people are recalling the names they’re most familiar with,” he told USA TODAY.
Nevertheless, one thing the survey shows is a lack of a defining Republican front-runner. A similar open-ended poll taken in April 2011 by ABC News/Washington Post also had Romney at 16 percent, double the numbers of anyone else.
“It’s a wall of candidates,” said former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating in an interview with reporters. “I happen to think the more, the merrier.”
After meeting with Jeb Bush last week in Washington, Keating said he was surprised the number of people who are holding off lining up behind a Republican candidate.
“People have walked into a brightly lit grocery store and are looking at all the attractive fruits and nuts,” Keating added. “They want to make sure the fruit they pick up is delicious because we can’t afford to lose again.”
The telephone survey, taken last week, asked 395 Democrats and 319 Republicans. There is a margin of error of +/- 5 percentage points for the question posed to Democrats and +/- six points for that asked the Republicans.
