Hillary is seriously popular

A Gallup poll released yesterday shows 65 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Hillary, her highest figure in 10 years. She was at 54 percent right before the Democratic National Convention this summer. Her previous all-time high? Right after the House voted to impeach Bill in December 1998.

Her ratings are up across party lines – she’s nearly unanimously liked now among Democrats (93%), a majority of Independents like her, and more than a third of Republicans polled gave her favorable marks.

And 56 percent of those polled believe she’ll be an outstanding or above average secretary of state. My guess is her performance yesterday didn’t dent that number at all.

For more evidence of her rapid rise in public estimation, there’s this:

An early December NBC/Wall Street Journal survey showed 53 percent of the sample felt very or somewhat positively about Clinton while 26 percent felt very/somewhat negatively about her. That compares favorably to an NBC/WSJ poll done in late March when 37 percent felt positively while 48 percent felt negatively.

Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images