Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would defeat either of two well-known and popular Republican Florida candidates in the 2016 presidential election, according to a poll released Thursday by Quinnipiac University.
In the poll of Florida voters on a hypothetical 2016 presidential race, Clinton leads former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush 51-40 percent, and leads GOP U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio 52-41 percent.
Clinton gets a 62 percent favorable rating, compared to 33 percent unfavorable in the poll of 1,000 registered Florida voters taken last week.
Bush’s favorable rating was 50 percent in the poll and Rubio’s 41 percent.
The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
“We probably won’t know for some time whether former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton runs for president in 2016, but if she decides to make the race, she begins with a sizable lead in a state that Republicans cannot win the White House without,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.