Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has a huge lead over other potential Democratic challengers for the 2016 presidential nomination, and when placed head-to-head against a number of Republican hopefuls, Clinton comes out ahead by double-digits, according to a new CNN/ORC poll.
Sixty-six percent of self-described Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents said they would support Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president in 2016, up one point from November. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts came in second with 9 percent, followed by Vice President Joe Biden at 8 percent.
Assuming that Clinton will be the Democratic presidential nomination, the pollsters then placed her head-to-head against seven Republicans who may run for their party's nomination.
Clinton came out ahead in each match-up, with the closest potential rival being former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who garnered 41 percent of the vote compared to Clinton's 54 percent.
When matched against Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Clinton came out 15 points ahead with 56 percent to 41 percent, and when matched against New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, she lead by 17 points, at 56 percent to 39 percent.
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky trailed Clinton by 20 points, at 58 percent to 38 percent, and Clinton had 21-point leads over retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. Clinton beat Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas by 25 percentage points, at 60 percent to 35 percent.
Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, Bush was the favored potential candidate, with 23 percent of the vote, followed by Christie at 13 percent and Carson at 7 percent.
The poll was conducted Dec. 19-21 among 1,011 adults, and has a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Twenty-eight percent described themselves as Democrats, 22 percent as Republicans and 50 percent described themselves as independents or members of another party. The sampling error was plus or minus 4.5 percentage points for individual Democrat and Republican questions.
