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Democratic Party possibilities for 2016 (clockwise from top left): former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; Vice President Joe Biden; former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley; Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders; Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren; former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb. Ethan Miller, Mandel Ngan, Patrick Smith, Mark Wilson, Chip Somodevilla (2)/Getty Images hide caption

Democratic Party possibilities for 2016 (clockwise from top left): former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; Vice President Joe Biden; former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley; Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders; Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren; former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb.

There may not be any officially declared candidates for president yet, but prominent Republicans from Jeb Bush to Rand Paul and Marco Rubio are making big speeches and jostling for consultants and donors. On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton may not formally announce whether she is running for months. But any number of polls would indicate, without even declaring, she has a lock on the Democratic nomination.

Which got me thinking who are the other potential Democratic candidates?

This may not be an obvious place to start, but I figured why not ask the opposition? America Rising PAC is a Republican group that exists to dig up dirt on Democrats. And it's on the lookout for presidential candidates to target.

"It really is tough," says Tim Miller, the PAC's executive director. He says each quarter the staff have a meeting where they sit down and basically ask themselves, "Who other than Hillary Clinton should we be researching?"

"And that list of strong candidates after Hillary is so small as to be potentially nobody."

To test the theory, I went to downtown Chicago hotbed of Democratic politics to ask people whom they expect to run for president. Here are some of the responses I got:

April Williams, sighing: "The only one I can think of is Hillary Clinton. That's about it."

Martha O'Connor: "Honestly, to be honest with you, Hillary is kind of the only person that pops into my mind."

Continued here:
In Likely Democratic Primary, Who's Joining Hillary Clinton?