A new poll shows that Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton would lose a general election contest against Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Ben Carson, but would beat Donald Trump, who’s led Republican polls for months now.
Clinton would beat Trump by 10 points, 50-40 percent, thanks in part to independent and Hispanic voters, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. The former secretary of State would also beat Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, 48-45, though that victory would be within the poll’s margin of error of 3.4 percent.
Up against Rubio or Carson, however, and Clinton struggles. She would lose to Rubio by 3 percent and barely loses to Carson by 1 percent in those hypothetical head-to-head general election match-ups.
Also in the poll, Rubio wins the independent voters vote over Clinton by 7 points, but then loses the Hispanic vote to her by 24 points. Furthermore, despite having the highest percentage of backing by female voters among GOP candidates, Clinton bests him in that demographic by 7 points (51 percent to 44 percent).
Clinton remains the favorite in the Democratic primary field, leading her next closest competitor, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, 56 percent to 37 percent. Just four percent back former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley.
The poll of 1,000 adults was conducted Dec. 6-9 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.
