CNN/ORC national poll: Clinton leads all GOP candidates by double digits

[pbrower2a]

CNN/ORC national poll:

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2015/images/03/17/poll.2016.pdf

Clinton 55%
Bush 40%

Clinton 55%
Christie 40%

Clinton 55%
Rubio 42%

Clinton 55%
Huckabee 41%

Clinton 54%
Paul 43%

Clinton 56%
Carson 40%

Clinton 55%
Walker 40%

We need to remind ourselves that Hillary Clinton in the mid 50s is close to the highest percentage of the vote that any Presidential nominee got since 1972 -- Ronald Reagan in 1984, at 58.77%. There is little room for growth of Clinton support.

....

PS: This poll is of all adults, not even registered voters.

For an open seat the top two are George H W Bush at 53.77% in 1988 and Obama at 52.86%  in 2008. "Adult" polling can include people who will not vote even if they could include aliens, persons who will lose their voting rights due to criminal convictions, and people who will die before they have a chance to cast a vote. It excludes persons now 16 and 17 who might vote in 2016.

"Adults" has some bearing on "voters" in an election eighteen months away. A partisan Republican can only see trouble if nobody is even close to Hillary Clinton. That nobody gets beyond 43% suggests that nobody will be close. Turnout may not decide the 2016 Presidential election, but it can decide other races.

Here is what is scary for a Republican: although Hillary Clinton is not building on the Reagan-like margins that Obama got in some states in 2008, any increase in raw vote percentage has to be coming from states that Obama lost. Such may be more relevant to Senatorial and Congressional races.   

[pbrower2a]

The same poll you are citing shows that Hillary's favorability rating is at its lowest point since June of 2008, and her unfavorability rating is at its highest point since June of 2008. (That's using CNN-sponsored polling's OWN past numbers - it's not comparing X to Y.)

So what? It's nearly the same as her favorables in May 2014. Regardless, even Hillary's numbers in June 08 are far superior to any of the Republican candidates.

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In Obama's comfortable 2012 victory, he lost the white vote 59-39. So a 43-54 favorable rating among whites is pretty damn good. And you're overestimating how far minority turnout will fall. Blacks still turned out for Gore and Kerry after all. If Hillary wins 40% of the white vote, she wins the election.

Blacks did not turn out for Kerry, at least, nothing like they did for Obama. Bush got 11% of the black vote, McCain/Romney got 4 and 6% respectively. I expect the black vote to be more republican in 2016, simply because there will not be a black on the democratic ticket, and there are blacks, like it or not, who voted for Obama solely because of his race. I will be very surprised if the republican candidate in 2016 does not hit 8% of the black vote, and I can definitely see 10 or even 12%.

Of course there were white people who voted for John McCain and Mitt Romney because Barack Obama is black.  How many? We will never know. But that is likely larger than the number of blacks who voted for Obama because he is black.

I look at some of the splits, and I see a weakening of regional strengths of the Republican Party in the last two Presidential elections.