None of the prominent Republicans believed to be considering presidential bids came out ahead of President Obama in a new PPP poll of registered voters nationwide. However, Obama did trail in one hypothetical match-up — versus an unspecified moderate Republican challenger.
The results underscore just how weak the slate of GOP candidates is: only one Republican, Mike Huckabee, posted a net favorable rating in the poll, with 36% of respondents viewing him favorably, and 30% viewing him unfavorably. Over half of all registered voters had a negative opinion of Newt Gingrich (53%), Sarah Palin (56%), and Donald Trump (56%).
And when voters knew the other candidates well enough to form an opinion of them, they viewed them unfavorably more often than not. For example, almost one-third of respondents had no opinion of Ron Paul — but among those who did, 45% had a negative opinion of him.
The results also show that, though Obama’s approval rating has surged in recent weeks, he is in no way out of the woods as he gears up for a reelection bid. The PPP poll found that 49% of voters approve of his job performance, compared to 46% who disapprove.
In the poll, Obama led each of the prospective GOP challengers, with only Huckabe and Mitt Romney making it a close race. Huckabee trailed Obama 47% to 44%, while Romney lagged 46% to 41%.
Obama beat Newt Gingrich 49% to 41%, and topped dark horse candidate Ron Paul 48% to 39%. And the poll found that Donald Trump, who made headlines at CPAC by declaring that Paul has zero chance of winning a general election, would actually have a tougher road to the White House than the Texas congressman would, as he trailed Obama by a 14-point margin, 48% to 34%.
Jeb Bush, who has become something of a Republican fantasy candidate, also trailed Obama by 14 points, 50% to 36%. Sarah Palin trailed by double digits as well, lagging Obama 52% to 40%.
While none of those candidates would win against Obama in the poll, respondents preferred a “moderate Republican candidate” to the President by a 46% to 44% split. Even a generic Republican candidate tied Obama at 47%. That suggests that, while voters prefer Obama to the current GOP challengers, it’s not necessarily because they’re keen vote for Obama: rather, it seems that they haven’t found a Republican they like better.
In another interesting sign, former President George W. Bush polled better than every Republican other than Huckabee, despite half of all respondents having a negative opinion of him. In a hypothetical match-up of the current and former president, Obama led by a slim four-point margin, 48% to 44%.
The PPP poll was conducted February 11-14 among 600 registered voters nationwide. It has a margin of error of 4.0%.
