Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is not a shoo-in for the next Democratic presidential nomination, says Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
"Magazine cover stories and news articles [are] basically crowning her the Democratic nominee and, in some cases, the next president," Sabato told "The Steve Malzberg Show" Thursday on Newsmax TV.
"Hey, we're two years away from the primaries starting. We're almost three years away from the general election. It is way too soon for a coronation."
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Likewise, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie isn't a lock for the Republican nomination — even before the bridge-gate scandal that rocked his administration, Sabato believes.
"It's more that Chris Christie doesn't have a lot of base support. He has the support of the establishment and the party elites because they simply look at an election in terms of winning and losing … but still they don't consider issue positions as closely as activists in the base do," he said.
"The base also remembers his embrace of Barack Obama the week before the 2012 election. So I've never thought of him as much of a frontrunner and, indeed, the polls really don't show him to be a frontrunner."
As far as Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis, the Democratic candidate facing Republican Greg Abbott in the Texas governor's race, she also doesn't have much of a chance, Sabato says.
"Look, she doesn't have enough of a base to win. She'll have plenty of money, but you have to have the votes, you have to have the base," he said.
He adds that Davis' misstatements on her biography haven't helped her campaign.
"I've said many times, if you're going to base your campaign on your personal narrative, make sure it's an accurate narrative. And that's her problem. There are pieces of that that aren't accurate," he said.
"You know what people have focused on more than anything else? It's the fact that she filed for divorce from her second husband the day after she paid the final tuition increment at Harvard Law School."
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