Nearly three months after Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy, she remains the favored choice of most Democratic voters, a new HuffPost/YouGov poll finds.
Fifty-four percent of voters who are Democrats or lean toward the party say they'd prefer to see Clinton as the Democratic nominee in 2016, while 30 percent would rather nominate someone else. In April, 56 percent had named her as their preferred nominee. Fifty-four percent of those voters in the new poll also say that they'd definitely vote for her, virtually unchanged from the 52 percent who previously said the same.
Seventy-seven percent of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters say they would be "enthusiastic" or "satisfied" to have Clinton as their nominee, a slight dip from the 85 percent who said the same in April.
But she still fares better on that measure than Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who's established himself as Clinton's liberal alternative and her foremost -- if still lagging -- rival for the Democratic nomination in states like New Hampshire.
Sanders remains far more of an unknown quantity than Clinton, with nearly one-third of the Democratic Party's voters not sure what to make of him. He also attracts more dissension: Although Democrats are more likely than not to say they'd be happy with either candidate, 20 percent say they'd be "dissatisfied" or "upset" to have Sanders as their nominee, compared with just 14 percent who say the same of Clinton.
Clinton's favorability rating, which peaked during her tenure as secretary of state, took a downward turn after she shifted back into candidacy mode. She's now viewed more unfavorably than favorably nationwide, although Democrats continue to rate her highly. Political analysts have also pointed to an increasing faction of voters who view her as dishonest or untrustworthy in the aftermath of controversies surrounding her State Department emails and the finances of the Clinton Foundation.
That could pose a problem for Clinton in the general election. Only 42 percent of all voters say they'd at least consider voting for her, down from 50 percent in April.
But that doubt doesn't seem to be affecting her base. More than half of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters say they'd rather have her than any other candidate. Just 23 percent of those who'd prefer another nominee, or about 7 percent of Democratic voters overall, cite her character as the main reason they're concerned about nominating her.
The HuffPost/YouGov poll consisted of 1,000 completed interviews conducted June 25-28 among U.S. adults using a sample selected from YouGov's opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population.
The Huffington Post has teamed up with YouGov to conduct daily opinion polls. You can learn more about this project and take part in YouGov's nationally representative opinion polling. Data from all HuffPost/YouGov polls can be found here. More details on the poll's methodology are available here.
Most surveys report a margin of error that represents some, but not all, potential survey errors. YouGov's reports include a model-based margin of error, which rests on a specific set of statistical assumptions about the selected sample, rather than the standard methodology for random probability sampling. If these assumptions are wrong, the model-based margin of error may also be inaccurate. Click here for a more detailed explanation of the model-based margin of error.
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