Washington: Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal has joined the race for US presidency in 2016, giving himself a mountain to climb from the bottom of a full pack of Republican candidates. “My name is Bobby Jindal and I am running for President of the United States of America,” Jindal, who became the first person of Indian-American heritage to run for US president, said on his website.
His website featured videos of Jindal and his wife, Supriya, telling their three children that he was going to be a candidate and promising his daughter they would get a puppy if they moved to the White House. Once seen as a rising Republican star, Jindal has struggled with a fiscal crisis and a slump in popularity in his home state and usually ranks near the bottom in polls of Republicans seeking the nomination for the November 2016 presidential election. Jindal, a two-term governor who also represented Louisiana in the US House of Representatives, joins 12 other Republicans in the race, including former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. Others, including Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, are expected to join soon.
Hillary Clinton on course to win
According to a new poll, Hillary Clinton is the firm favourite to be chosen as the Democratic Party nominee for the presidential polls and go on to be elected as the first woman president of America.
A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll taken in the days after Clinton held her first public rally earlier this month, showed the former secretary of state garnering broad support for being chosen the Democratic presidential nominee.
Three-quarters of Democratic primary voters said Clinton was their top pick to be the nominee, compared with the 15 per cent who selected Bernie Sanders.
Clinton, 67, enters the 2016 contest with unusually broad support from fellow Democrats with some 92 per cent of Democratic primary voters saying they could see themselves supporting her and just 8 per cent saying they could not, according to the poll.
But it is not that Clinton just emerges as the strongest contender in the primary vote but the poll shows that she is looking set for a successful November 2016 election bid to become the first woman president of America.
The poll asked 1,000 likely voters about their opinions on potential presidential candidates, both Republican and Democrat.
It showed Clinton polling at 48 per cent to 40 per cent against her closest Republican contender, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, the brother of former president George W Bush and son of former president George HW Bush.
Against the Florida senator Marco Rubio, Clinton polled 50 per cent against 40 per cent. And against Wisconsin governor Scott Walker she polled 51 per cent to 37 per cent.
The survey found that Americans are divided on whether they want the next president to be a Republican or a Democrat. But among many key demographic groups, Clinton outpaces the support for her party.
