It's too early for 2016 polls -- but let's peek anyway

Yes, it is too early for presidential polling to mean anything much.  In the Republican primary, where everyone wants the winnowing to begin, the field just keeps expanding.    With John Kasich, George Pataki, and Rick Santorum all jumping in this week, it's getting more crowded rather than less.

Kyle Wingfield, a political columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, settled for grouping them into tiers:
   Top Tier:   Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker.
   Do Not Underestimate:   Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Carly Fiorina, John Kasich.
   Do Not Overestimate:   Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum.
   Bottom Tier:  Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, George Pataki, Donald Trump.

The respected polling from Quinnipiac University shows "undecided" polling about double what any other candidate rates, which is pretty good indication that not much should be made of polling at this stage.

Nevertheless, polling is going to decide which 10 participate in the first debate, sponsored by Fox News in August.

There are some trends in the Quinnipiac poll that are of interest.   In match-ups with Hillary Clinton, Rubio and Paul are the strongest, lagging Clinton by 4 points each.  She bests Scott Walker by 8, Christie by 9, Jeb Bush by 10.   That is, four others come closer to Clinton than Bush does.   The numbers are too small to mean much, but it adds to the meme that Bush is not fulfilling his supposed "front-runner" status.

By 59% to 32%, American voters say going to war with Iraq was the wrong thing to do.  But among Republicans, that flips to 62% for going to war and 28% against.   The important message here is that this factor will play one way in the GOP primary and the other way in the general election.   That's a tough dance to do.

In races for the House of Representatives, 39% would vote for a Democrat and 36% for a Republican, while in Senate races the Democratic advantage increases to 42% to 35%.  It's probably safe to say, then, that at this point Democrats have a slight advantage in general.  And, given that senate Republicans have to defend 24 seats and Democrats only 10, so there's a fair chance of Democrats re-taking the senate. 

This may change as campaigns and specific candidates move to front center.   But as a rough measure of who should be worried, and realizing the race is going to get tighter, I would say nothing is sure,  but a win for Republicans seems less sure than a win for the Democrats -- especially if SCOTUS throws them a curve by gutting the Affordable Care Act of subsidies for millions of voters.

If that happens, Republicans will have to explain to the American voters why they refused a simple, one-line fix in the law that kicked a million or so people off their newly acquired health insurance.

Ralph