Christie Leads in 2016 Presidential Poll [AUDIO]

Democrats have a clear idea when it comes to the person they'd like to see as their party's presidential nominee in 2016, but there's still no clear front-runner for the Republican side.

A new national poll by Fairleigh Dickinson University's PublicMind shows New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie with a slim lead over other Republican hopefuls and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with a significant lead among Democrats.

The new poll was released Wednesday.

"On the Republican side, Chris Christie is the winner by a narrow margin," said Krista Jenkins, director of PublicMind and professor of political science. "He tops the list with 18 percent of support among Republicans, but Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio aren't far behind with numbers that range from 11-15 percent."

While Christie leads among Republicans overall, he doesn't do nearly as well among conservative and Tea Party Republicans. New Jersey's governor actually trails Cruz by five points among those two factions of the GOP.

"Christie's lead among Republicans overall is almost entirely due to his high support among ideological moderate Republicans," Jenkins explained. "Christie's lead among Republicans doesn't necessarily translate into an easy time in the primaries. Conservatives and Tea Partiers are the most likely voters in the primaries and he'll need to do better among them if he wants the nomination."

On the Democratic side, Clinton dominates the field with 63 percent support among Democrats. Her possible challengers are far behind, to say the least. Vice President Joe Biden gets 5 percent support, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren garners 9 percent and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has received just 1 percent support.

The poll of 1,002 Americans aged 18 and older was conducted by telephone with both landline and cell phones from Dec. 9 through Dec. 15 and has a margin of error of +/3.1 percentage points. Respondents were not asked about a head-to-head match up between Clinton and Christie.