Matched against New York Gov. George Pataki, Clinton's margin of victory drops by 1 point, but she'd still win 41 percent to 35 percent.

In the most stunning development, the Fox survey found the former first lady would even defeat Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, 46 percent to 35 percent.

Opinion Dynamics also found that "a clear majority of voters thinks Hillary Clinton is qualified to be president of the United States (59 percent), including a third of Republicans, 58 percent of independents and 84 percent of Democrats.

Two of the most popular Republicans, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Arizona Sen. John McCain, were not included in the poll.

However, a Quinnipiac University survey released last week showed that Giuliani would defeat Clinton 45 percent to 43 percent if he were to run for her Senate seat in 2006.

The Fox poll also showed that John Kerry would defeat Gov. Bush if Kerry were to run again in 2008, but by a smaller margin than Clinton - 45 percent to 37 percent.

Opinion Dynamics conducted the national telephone survey of 900 registered voters on December 14-15.

Editor's note: