Things are looking sad for the Republican Party in these ridiculously early days of the 2016 presidential election. According to a USA Today/Suffolk University poll released on Wednesday, Romney has a big lead among potential Republican Iowa caucus attendees.

The trouble is, Romney has already decidedly announced that he is not running. One way to interpret that data, is that the remaining field of Republican candidates is so bad that Iowans would rather have a guy who isn’t even running than any of them. Other potential candidates included:

Jeb Bush
Chris Christie
Ted Cruz
Mike Huckabee
Jon Huntsman
Bobby Jindal
John Kasich
Rand Paul
Rick Perry
Marco Rubio
Paul Ryan
Rick Santorum
Scott Walker

The next nearest vote-getter among respondents was Mike Huckabee, getting 15% of the vote as compared to Romney’s 60%.

Keep in mind, though, that the winner of the 2012 Iowa caucus was Rick Santorum. Romney came in second place that year. And in 2008, Romney came in second again, this time to Mike Huckabee. No one seemed to really want Romney back then, but now he appears to be the best hope, according to Iowan poll respondents.

Recently, Romney started to tease Republicans a bit by saying that “circumstances can change”. Perhaps that means that he will only put himself out there for the kind of abuse he received last time if Republicans nearly beg him to run and show up ready to vote.

But Democrats have similar issues. Lots of Democrats keep insisting that they want Elizabeth Warren to run in 2016, despite Warren’s status as a freshman senator who has shown no intention of running.

The obvious choice for most Democrats, and heir apparent, is Hillary Clinton. But that isn’t stopping Warren supporters from wishing they could change that. They may like Hillary, But they love Elizabeth Warren.