It's way too early to be focusing on 2016 polls like this one, but I think the numbers tell us something about the long-term prospects of the GOP, a party most people think is doomed:
Hillary Clinton beats Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in potential 2016 match ups in Iowa, according to a new poll Friday.So there's a massive gender gap in a Clinton-Paul race. No surprise there. But there's also an age gap -- and it's not one that fits into the widely accepted "Demographics will kill the GOP" narrative.
Clinton, a Democrat, would best Rubio 48 percent to 37 percent and she runs ahead of Paul 46 percent to 42 percent, the Quinnipiac University poll found.
A closer look at a potential Clinton-Paul match-up shows Paul leading among Iowa independents 44 percent to 38 percent. He also leads among men 49 percent to 39 percent. Clinton wins among women 53 percent to 34 percent....
Paul, it turns out, loses to Clinton in every group ... except 18-29-year-olds. Here are the numbers:
18-29: Paul 46%, Clinton 42%Is this just Iowa? Is it a meaningless result because the subsample is small? Is there just more sexism among the young, especially young males? Or ageism?
30-44: Clinton 44%, Paul 41%
45-64: Clinton 48%, Paul 42%
65+: Clinton 48%, Paul 38%
If it's meaningful, it makes me think that the GOP just has to harness the "bros for hemp and economic Darwinism" message of Rand Paul and it can overcome its difficulties in appealing to younger voters, as the older ones die off. I think it's likely the GOP won't do this -- I still think Rubio is a much more likely 2016 nominee -- and he's actually weakest against both Clinton and Biden among young people, possibly because he is, as Michael Kinsley said about Al Gore a couple of decades ago, "an old person's idea of a young man," or possibly because he tries so damn hard to seem hip.
There isn't a significant age gap in the Joe Biden-Rand Paul matchup -- though that may be because Biden (or at least the Onion/Jon Stewart version of Biden) is seen as somewhat of a bro. Still, Paul beats Biden among the young (and overall).
Paulism is the GOP's future, though I'm not sure the GOP understands that. I'm not even sure Paul understands that -- the great drone-hater will probably vote to keep Gitmo open, assuming he sticks to the pro-Gitmo position he staked out in 2009. But the potential is there.
