As Dan wrote in March, Rubio and Romney have been in talks regarding his then much-speculated presidential run; he would formally announce his 2016 bid in April. Romney “encouraged and mentored” Rubio at the time regarding the 2016 landscape, according to a Romney associate who spoke with the Washington Post. Rubio did face a fundraising obstacle since Jeb Bush has deep Florida and Texas money ties. And there were some prominent big donors in Florida who liked both Bush and Rubio, but weren’t going to back both–and it wasn’t going to be Rubio. So, during this time, Rubio knew if he could convince Romney’s crowd that he was part of the “next generation of Republican leaders,” he would be able to amass a war chest that could shoot him to the top of the field. Right now, Rubio is one of the top candidates in the 2016 GOP field.
On the Democratic side, many of Obama’s donors from the 2012 cycle are flocking to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) (via US News and World Report):
Bernie Sanders is drawing more of Barack Obama's 2012 campaign donors than Hillary Clinton.And Marco Rubio is scoring the biggest share of Mitt Romney's contributors thus far.
These are the findings of Crowdpac, a San Francisco-based political data-mining firm which analyzed the July presidential campaign finance reports.
The Vermont senator has already received contributions from 24,582 of Obama's donors; whereas Clinton has only tapped just over 9,000 of them. Martin O'Malley, the former Maryland governor, has grabbed 383 Obama donors.
That means Sanders has nabbed 72 percent of the 34,340 Obama donors who have given to a candidate in 2016, according to Crowdpac.
Ever since Mitt Romney dropped his flirtation with another White House bid last winter, the rush has been on to court his moneymen and women.
Rubio's winning that charge.
Crowdpac found that the first-term Florida senator has nabbed the greatest number of Romney donors so far – 2,891.
Perhaps more surprising. though, is that Ted Cruz is landing more of Romney's donors (1,840) than Jeb Bush (1,562).
[…]
Overall, of the 9,302 Romney donors who have doled out money to a candidate in 2016, Rubio has snagged about 31 percent of them.
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As for Hillary Clinton, let’s make no mistake that her war chest will be enormous as well. And yet, 60 percent of donors from her campaign’s most recent filing can’t give again, as CNN’s Jeff Zeleny told John King.
It sort of undercuts her campaign’s anti-coronation narrative–i.e., that she’s not just the establishment candidate but appeals to the grassroots as well. For now, however, that crown seems to be going to Sanders. Oh, and Jeb Bush has the exact same problem, with most of his donations coming from wealthy donors. In all, only three percent of Jeb’s $11.4 million fundraising haul came from small donations. Only 17 percent of small donations made up the $45 million that was added into the Hillary coffers.
Clinton is also not doing well with the Obama coalition, who is still viewing her favorably, albeit significantly less than that of the president. As Ed wrote over at Hot Air, even though her numbers are pretty solid with Democrats/progressives, the 10 to 20-point favorable deficits she has with liberal Democrats present a huge problem regarding turnout. Moreover, she isn’t doing too hot with women (45 percent) and Americans under 30 (38 percent) right now.
The turnout problem is obviously related to the numbers problem, but it goes beyond that. Those who see Hillary favorably are smaller in number than the coalition that barely won Obama a second term, but based on Hillary’s personal quality measures in this poll, they’re likely to be a lot less enthusiastic about the choice. Obama’s personal measures, especially on compassion and honesty, stayed strong from the beginning of the first campaign in 2007 until about the time the NSA scandal erupted. Two-thirds of respondents in this poll think Hillary is dishonest, and only 40% think of her as compassionate. Her personal favorability has tumbled 15 points in the gap to 39/49 since April.This translates into fewer people networking for her, fewer people operating as organizers on the ground, and the need to go much more negative. Without strong positives on personal qualities, that will be a disaster waiting to happen for Democrats, especially among millennials who will roll their eyes at a return to the Clinton era of hardball politics. They already aren’t connecting much to a 69-year-old grandmother, as this graph shows, and it will only get worse as a negative campaign continues.
On top of that, economic pessimism is on the rise. The number of people who think the economy is getting worse is at its highest since October, 24% (17% think it’s getting better, the lowest in more than two years). Thirty-three percent think it will get worse in the next year, the highest since last October, and 29% think it will improve — the lowest in a year. That is not going to produce an electorate anxious to continue the economic policies of the preceding eight years, no matter how many times Hillary Clinton can say “Bush.”
The chances of getting Obama’s band back together in 2016 look very slim at the moment.
Guy also broke down another AP-GfK poll, which showed very cool support with American voters. Thirty-nine percent view her favorably, less than 50 percent say she’s competent, 41 percent say she’s likable, and 37 percent say she’s inspiring–this is quite the train wreck, though it’s still early.
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