America
US presidential race: Hillary Clinton leads Democrats, no Republican frontrunner
By
Arun Kumar Washington, May 6
Despite questions about the
Clinton Foundation and her use of private email as secretary of state,
Hillary Clinton starts her second presidential bid as a Democratic
favourite, while no frontrunner has emerged among the Republicans.
Americans
now view the former First Lady more favourably and as a stronger leader
than they did earlier in the year, despite weeks of scrutiny about her
ethics, a New York Times/CBS News poll has found.
While nearly
nine in 10 Democrats say the nation is ready to elect a female
president, there is no clear choice among the growing list of candidates
for the Republican nomination, the poll found.
More than half
the voters don't know enough about Louisiana's Indian-American Governor
Bobby Jindal, who has been toying with the idea of running, but has not
yet thrown his hat into the ring formally.
With 85 percent of
Democratic voters considering voting for Clinton - similar to March -
she continues to be the top candidate for the Democratic nomination for
president.
Vice President Joe Biden (53 percent) is a distant
second to Clinton followed by Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren (36
percent), although half of Democratic voters don't know enough about
Warren to have an opinion.
Most Democratic voters don't know much
about Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the
Democrats and last week announced he will run for the Democratic
nomination.
But more would consider voting for him (23 percent)
than not (16 percent). These views are more positive than they were
before Sanders made his announcement.
While far more Democrats
would consider voting for Hillary Clinton than any other candidate, 69
percent want to see her run with strong competition from other
Democratic candidates.
In general, 78 percent of registered
voters think America is ready to elect a woman as president - including
majorities of Republicans (61 percent), Democrats (89 percent), and
independents (78 percent).
Among the Republicans, Senator Marco
Rubio, Former Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee, and former Florida
governor Jeb Bush are top contenders with just under half of Republican
voters saying they would consider voting for each.
Four in ten
would consider voting for Senator Ted Cruz and former Texas governor
Rick Perry, and about a third would consider senator Rand Paul, retired
neurosurgeon Ben Carson and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.
New
Jersey Governor Chris Christie remains the potential candidate with the
largest percentage of Republicans who say they would not consider him.
Carly
Fiorina, former chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard (HP) who
recently announced her candidacy, is unknown to about seven in ten
Republican voters, as is Governor of Ohio John Kasich.
For twenty of the past twenty six years, a person with the last name Bush or Clinton has been in the White House.
Registered
voters overall are more likely to think it would be a bad thing for the
country (33 percent) than a good thing (13 percent) if another member
of the Bush or Clinton family became the next president, though nearly
half (47 percent) say it wouldn't really make much difference.
Most registered voters think these familial connections to the White House would have an impact.
Fifty-five
percent of voters think former President George W. Bush would have at
least some influence on his brother Jeb Bush if he were to become
president.
Even more - 66 percent - think former President Bill Clinton would have at least some influence on a President Hillary Clinton.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at [email protected])