HAMDEN — The race to the white house is going to be a marathon. Election day 2016 is still a far way off, but we’re already getting insight into who Americans would vote for from the Quinnipiac University Poll.
Quinnipiac released the poll Thursday morning.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio leads the pack for the Republicans. Fifteen percent of Republicans picked Rubio, who is one of three to officially announce his candidacy.
The other two to officially announce are behind Rubio as well as two other candidates who haven’t even announced their own campaigns yet.
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush got 13 percent and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker was the choice of 11 percent of Republican voters.
Nine percent of republicans chose Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas, and 8 percent picked Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. Still, 14 percent of republicans are undecided according to the Quinnipiac Poll.
It’s more clear cut for the Democrats.
Vice President Joe Biden got 10 percent of those polled and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders got 8 percent. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley was the pick for 3 percent of Democrats polled.
Just as with the Republicans, 14 percent of Democrats are still undecided.
Quinnipiac pitted Clinton against each potential Republican candidate, and in each case more voters picked Clinton over the Republican candidate. Sen. Cruz is closing that gap between him and Clinton.
“The youngest member of the GOP presidential posse moves to the front of the pack to challenge Hillary Clinton whose position in her own party appears rock solid,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Poll.
In October 2013 voters chose Clinton over Cruz 54-31, but in this recent poll voters only chose the Democratic front-runner 48-41.
“This is the kind of survey that shoots adrenalin into a campaign. Marco Rubio gets strong enough numbers and favorability ratings to look like a legit threat to Hillary Clinton,” Malloy said.
Hillary may be a good leader, but can she be trusted?
There were “mixed reviews for Hillary Clinton on key character traits” according to Malloy.
Voters said 62 to 34 percent that the Democrat has strong leadership qualities, beating the Republican men by margins of 10 percentage points or more.
But Quinnipiac also asked voters if they trusted Clinton. After the Benghazi scandal and the controversy over deleted emails 54 percent of those polled said that Clinton is not honest and trustworthy, compared to just 28 percent who said she was trustworthy.
Voters are evenly split on whether she “she cares about their needs and problems,” 47 to 47 percent. Voters said that Rand Paul cares about their problems 43 to 25 percent, the best score among Republican.
