The vast majority of Americans believe that there is a candidate currently running for the White House who would make a good president, according to a Gallup poll released today . The survey revealed that 84 percent of Americans feel that way, while in January 1992 just 40 percent agreed with the same question. Gallup concludes that this presidential election cycle appears to be less friendly than 1992 to a possible independent candidate.

The positive responses to whether candidates are talking about important issues was more than 70 percent, a number that is close to the percentages seen in polling conducted in October of both 1992 and 2000. Similarly, positive responses to whether any of the candidates have come up with good ideas for solving the country’s problems (58 percent) are higher than results from January polls of previous election years and are close to the numbers of polls taken in October of previous election years.

There are several major differences between the 1992 election season and the current one, including an early start to the primaries, the presence of at least one nationally known candidate in each party and an open race for both parties’ nominations. But, the results from today’s poll suggest that no possible independent candidate would do as well in November as Ross Perot did in 1992.

The margin of error for the poll of 2,010 adults conducted Jan. 10-13 is plus or minus 2 percentage points.