A new hypothetical presidential contest poll released by Bloomberg/Des Moines Register shows that, among likely Iowa voters, most would back Romney in a head-to-head match-up with Hillary Clinton.
Among those surveyed in the poll, conducted from Oct. 3-8 among 1,107 likely 2016 voters, 44 percent said they would back Romney, while 43 percent said they would vote for Clinton.
The question asked, "If the 2016 general election were held today, and Hillary Clinton were running against one of these Republicans, for whom would you vote?"
Two other Republican potentials, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, trailed close behind Hillary, which according to Bloomberg, suggests a fierce fight is to come in the swing state in 2016. Ryan trailed Clinton by one point, at 43 percent, and Paul came in three points behind Clinton at 41 percent.
Jeb Bush came in at 39 percent to Clinton's 46 percent, and Chris Christie at 38 percent to Clinton's 43 percent. Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz also trailed Clinton by eight and 10 percentage points.
The Bloomberg poll showed that "almost half - 49 percent - of likely Iowa voters in the upcoming midterm elections say they have an unfavorable view of Clinton, while 47 percent rate her favorably. Fifty-seven percent of likely voters have a positive opinion of her husband, former president Bill Clinton, and 39 percent view him negatively."
Clinton hasn't publicly announced whether she intends to run for president in 2016, but she is getting back into the swing of things this month as she began a Democratic congressional candidate campaign run across the country.
Romney has said multiple times that he has no plans of running as the Republican candidate in 2016, but a few close friend and former aides recently said that should a specific series of events play out in Romney's favor, it's entirely possible that he could run once more. If no single powerhouse comes out leading from the field of Republican candidate hopefuls, Romney could find himself back in the race.
