A fun (if not-so-flawless) poll by Bloomberg Politics played the "what if" game with the presidential election and found that if past Democratic and Republican candidates had run against the current nominees, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump might have been clobbered:
Obama can't run for a third term, but if he could he'd beat Trump by 12 percentage points, 53 percent to 41 percent, according to the poll. Romney would defeat Clinton by 10 percentage points.The survey, conducted Friday night through Sunday, showed Clinton leading Trump by 3 percentage points. Obama was judged favorably by 54 percent of respondents, an approval rating that easily beat Clinton's (46 percent) or Trump's (41 percent). The president couldn't, however, match the 58-percent approval rating of his wife, Michelle. [Bloomberg Politics]
The results ought to be taken with a grain of salt — as ThinkProgress' Judd Legum pointed out, "When Hillary wasn't running, she was also very popular." Jamelle Bouie of Slate also added, "I actually do not think Obama would perform that well against Trump. He benefits right now from being somewhat outside of partisan combat."
But that's the fun about "what if" games. They simply make you wonder what might have been.
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