These charts were made from a newly released Quinnipiac University Poll -- done between November 23rd and 30th of a random national sample of 573 registered Democrats and 672 registered Republicans. The margin of error for Democrats is 4.1 points, and for Republicans is 3.8 points.
The poll showed no change in the Democratic primary race. Hillary Clinton (60%) still has a substantial 30 point lead over her closest opponent, Bernie Sanders (30%). Martin O'Malley is basically an "also ra" with 2% Democratic support. This is what polls have been showing for a couple of months now, and tells us the Democratic race is very stable.
The same can't be said about the Republican primary race. Donald Trump (27%) is still leading, but is not gaining any ground on his opponents. In fact, he has three opponents now that are only about 10 points behind him. Marco Rubio (17%), Ben Carson (16%), and Ted Cruz (16%) are virtually tied for second place in GOP support. Jeb Bush is still struggling with only 5% support, and no other GOP candidate could top 3%. The slippage of Carson (and Trump to a lesser extent, and the rise of Rubio and Cruz, shows the GOP race is still very volatile -- and will probably change further in the coming weeks.
Ted: I agree that the Democratic race is. essentially, over. Barring, as I keep putting it, 'personal catastrophe or a world-changing event' (meaning something on the level of a shooting war with Putin) Hillary is, and should be, our nominee. I appreciate Bernie's attempt to keep her facing left, though tis year I am not sure she needs it, and as long as he does not use attacks that either give ammunition to Republicans or, more likely, keep people home on election day. (I had suggested that someone market t-shirts to Democrats -- this was back when there were five candidates -- with their chosen candidate, but with the picture of the others beneath it, and the legend, "I'm for... but any of these are hundreds of times better than any Republican running."
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I wish Bernie were more electable, because of that always possible catastrophe. Who would Democrats turn to if Hillary were unable to run, especially if the reason occurred between thee primaries and the convention? (My fear is that they'd look in the direction of my own Governor, Andrew Cuomo, the Democratic Richard Nixon.)
On the Republican side, I still think that Trump will get out the first chance he has, that he never wanted to BE President, just to cause the most mischief he could. If I am wrong, he could probably put together a coalition of craaziees that would win him the nomination, gathering in the Carson support, and the Cruz support if he backed away. But those seem to be the only possible choices, after a multi-ballot convention and an attempt to support someone at least semi-sane fails.
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I think the Republican 'establishment' will rethink its position once Carson and Trump have faded. Even assuming that enough votes could switch from those two to Rubio, Bush, or Christie to make them competitive, the inter-party fight has already made the odds of winning extremely unlikely, and I think they'd rather lose with an extremist and shut that side up, than lose with a centrist and have to hear four more years of "Well, if we'd nominated a REAL Conservative, we would have won.'
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But, after all, is it even possible to imagine Hillary losing to any individual candidate, or that any of the Klown Korps could unite his party behind him? The question in every district and Senatorial race -- and state races as well -- is whether the Republican candidate is willing to tie himself to his nominee, and lose, or to run against the nominee and risk a primary or general election revolt by the 'base.' (And *sigh* as always, whether thee Democrats have enough self-confidence to realize and take advantage of the opportunity they have.). .