The Only Graph You Need To See To Understand Just How Far Ahead Hillary Clinton Really Is

This one graph shows just how much work every other 2016 presidential candidate has to do to beat Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton may not yet have announced her intention to run for president, but it seems like the only person who hasn’t said she is running is Hillary Clinton. The former U.S. Secretary of State and 2008 presidential candidate has something more valuable than anything else in her back pocket: voters are very familiar with her. And she has the second-most valuable commodity in her back pocket too: high favorability ratings.

Gallup this afternoon released the results of a poll that determines the favorability rating and familiarity rating of 16 Republican and Democratic potential or likely candidates for the White House. Hillary Clinton beat them all, by a huge margin.

If you’re wondering if “emailgate” has squashed her ratings among voters, Gallup note the poll was taken March 2-4, “just as revelations about the private email account Clinton used to conduct business while secretary of state became a major news story.” 

So, a good guesstimate would be “no,” it has not, to any large degree.

“Clinton is one of a few potential 2016 presidential candidates to have a significantly higher favorable (50%) than unfavorable (39%) rating among the American public,” Gallup reports. “And the 89% of Americans who are familiar enough with Clinton to have an opinion of her is more than any other potential 2016 presidential candidate. Clinton’s relatively high scores on both dimensions give her a better starting position regarding her image than other competitors would have in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”

Here’s the graph, and how Gallup explains it:

“The candidates who appear in the upper-right quadrant are in the most advantageous position at this point as they are both relatively well-known and have higher favorable than unfavorable ratings. In addition to Clinton, Republicans Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee and Rand Paul reside in this space. However, Americans rate each of those Republicans only slightly more positively than negatively, with net favorable scores of +2 or +3, compared with Clinton’s +11. And Huckabee and Paul have just slightly above average familiarity. Generally speaking, the further candidates are away from the intersecting lines, the better their image.”

The only potential candidate to beat Clinton in the net favorable/unfavorable category is Dr. Ben Carson.

If you’re curious about the actual numbers, here’s Gallup’s chart:

Inevitable? No way. But until the Democrats produce a solid candidate who’s stronger, Hillary looks like she’s winning.

 

Image, top, by Mike Mozart via Flickr and a CC license
Chart and graph via Gallup