‘Undecided’ leads GOP choice: USA Today poll.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: Contestants — start your engines. As the checkered flag waves over the Republican presidential nomination, the field appears to be the most congested it’s been in years.
A new poll conducted by USA Today and Suffolk University finds Republican and right-leaning voters are divided between 18 prospective nominees when asked an open-ended question about whom they want the GOP to support for a run to the White House.
“Undecided” ranks first at 45 percent, followed by 2012 nominee Mitt Romney at 16 percent, and former Florida governor Jeb Bush anchors the lot with 13 percent.
Other, less prevalently reported contenders include Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
Across the aisle, the Democrats couldn’t be any more diametrically opposed in their certainty. A 51 percent majority of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters point to former secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as their nominee of choice; 31 percent are undecided, 5 percent name liberal stalwart and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, and just 4 percent reply with Vice President Joe Biden.
The accuracy of the survey is far from ironclad. “The fact is that people are recalling the names they’re most familiar with,” David Paleologos, director of Suffolk’s Political Research Center in Boston, told USA Today. “So it has its limitations.”