Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush leads the 2016 Republican presidential leads a long list of hopefuls and it will no doubt be a very competitive battle for the nomination. Meanwhile, Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton holds an unsurprising lead for the Democrats, even though most voters would like to see her face strong competition, according to a CBS poll released Sunday.
Bush remains as he has for most of 2015 the very early GOP front runner with 51 percent of respondents saying they would vote for him, but there are a number of big names closing in led by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee with 42 percent. Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida trail them with 39 percent of voters’ support.
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who formally announced his presidential bid Monday, is next with 37 percent. Seven other Republicans follow.
Over on the Democratic side, Clinton has 81 percent of respondents saying they’ll vote for her, well ahead of Vice President Joe Biden’s 38 percent.
There are only four contenders on the Democratic side with Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, former Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is an independent in the Senate.
Despite having such a strong foothold, 66 percent want to see strong competition against Clinton in the primary.
Despite the controversy regarding her private email server appears to have had no affect on her favorability, as she held 81 percent of voters’ support in February. Once again Clinton followers see the GOP ganging up on her and they don’t seem to be swayed by either the email issue or the Benghazi controversy.
