If Clinton wins, who will be leading 2020 GOP primary polls as of November 2016?

[Mr. Morden]

Clinton wins in November, and a couple of weeks later (late November 2016, or just three months from now) a pollster does a national primary poll for the 2020 Republican nomination.  Who is leading?  I assume it’s someone like one of the aforementioned names, since folks like Cotton and Sasse are way too unknown to be leading any national polls just yet.

Not sure if Trump would actually be included in such a poll, but maybe he will be, even if I doubt he would run again.  Romney also probably won’t be included in such a poll, and certainly isn’t going to run again.  But…you never know what pollsters might do.

Bonus question: Will Iowa and New Hampshire polls have a different leader from the national polls?

[Mr. Morden]

And honestly I wouldn't be shocked if Ryan sat it out until 2024.

That's not relevant to whether or not he'll be leading the polls in a few months.  Even if he's not running for prez in 2020, Ryan will leave the option open for a while, just like he did in the '16 cycle.

[Mr. Morden]

I think the top 3 will be Ben Sasse, Tom Cotton, Scott Walker.

Cotton and Sasse have negligible name recognition.  What can they possibly do in the next three months to propel them to the top of national polls?

[Mr. Morden]

*bump*

We might start getting 2020 polls in just ~six weeks or so.  Any further thoughts on who'll be leading them, post-Cruz's endorsement of Trump?

[Mr. Morden]

What percent of Republicans would, at that point, even know who Sasse and Cotton are?

Almost zero.  5% in the early polls would be enough for them to beat expectations.  They'll be nowhere near the lead at this early stage.

[Mr. Morden]

So we have one October poll so far, the Morning Consult poll:

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=247601.0

and it had Pence in the lead.  So are November/December polls also going to have Pence leading, or was that just a blip, or a quirk of Morning Consult?