Hillary Clinton continues to hold a lead over five Republicans in a poll of Iowans who are likely to vote in the 2016 presidential election. The survey, conducted by Quinnipiac University June 12th through the 16th, shows Clinton’s closest potential rivals trail her by six percentage points.
Peter Brown is assistant director of the Quinnipiac Poll. “The fact that Mrs. Clinton is ahead a fairly substantial number of Republicans that Quinnipiac tested her against is good for her. The bad news (for Clinton) is she is not as (far) ahead of some of them as she had been,” Brown said.
The poll also suggests New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is climbing back into the race. “He now only trails Hillary Clinton by eight points. That’s an improvement from the last poll in March, when she had a 13 point lead on him,” Brown said. “However, both numbers are far from the small lead that Christie had over Mrs. Clinton before the ‘Bridgegate’ incident in New Jersey led to a lot of criticism of Mr. Christie.”
Iowa voters give Clinton a 52 to 41 percent favorability rating, according to the survey. That’s much better than how Iowans feel about President Obama. “Over the last year, Quinnipiac has had four polls and (Obama) has not done better than 41 percent and he’s done as low as 38 percent in terms of job approval,” Brown said.
Iowa voters were also surveyed about the job performance of Senators Chuck Grassley and Tom Harkin. Grassley, a Republican, posted a 62 to 30 percent approval rating. Harkin, a Democrat, scored a 56 to 33 percent approval.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tops other possible Republican 2016 presidential contenders:
46 – 40 percent over U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky
46 – 39 percent over former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee
49 – 36 percent over former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush
47 – 41 percent over U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin
44 – 36 percent over New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie