Rank the top five most likely people to be elected POTUS in November 2016

[Mister Mets]

1) Hillary Clinton
She is more likely to win her nomination than any Republican is to win theirs (or that all the other Democrats put together are to win the party's nomination.)

I'm not even sure there's anyone else with a ten percent chance of being the Democratic nominee in 2016.

2) Rand Paul
Top-tier Republican almost certain to run. Has had a good year.
Likely to do well in early primaries.

3) Paul Ryan
He's been on a national ticket. The party would like to see a young smart guy get nominated. He's from a state next to Iowa. I'd rate him above Rand Paul if I was certain he was running.

4) Chris Christie
Tremendous political talents. Relatively likely to run. Tainted by Bridgegate, but no other shoes have dropped there.

5) Marco Rubio
My hunch is that he's more likely to run than Jeb. And Republicans like the idea of nominating a young Hispanic man with conventional conservative views.

[Mister Mets]

Why do people put Jeb at #2?  His last name would destroy him in a general.  I would argue just about everyone, maybe even Ted Cruz(probably not though), would be more electable than him. 

George W Bush has become more popular as a former President.

He's not the anchor he was in 2008.

[Mister Mets]

At this point.

1. Hillary Clinton- Mainly because she's still very likely to be the Democratic nominee.
2. Jeb Bush- Polling in the top three, and with enough fundraising to outlast the other candidates. Benefits from Trump sucking the oxygen.
3. Scott Walker- Likely to beat Bush in Iowa. Acceptable to conservative base with strong electoral record. Likely to be the main anti-Bush.
4. Marco Rubio- Still looks good on paper, and has tremendous political talent.
5. John Kasich- Strong General Election candidate with the potential to be the top alternative to Jeb and to appeal to the McCain voters.

I thought about Biden for #5, but Clinton's chances of being the nominee are very high, and the circumstances that would lead to Biden getting the nomination are likely to hurt the party.

You could make an argument for Cruz. He's ahead of Rubio, and stands to benefit from a Trump collapse.

And the possibility of a Trump presidency doesn't seem so remote. His main problems are that he's not a lot of Republican's second choice, and that he polls poorly in General Election matchups. Neither is insurmountable, even if it's unlikely.

Rand's numbers could also go up. In these lists it's easy to exxaggerate the status of the last few months (as I did in my initial post with Rand at #2 due to a few consecutive news cycles.)