Who would win, if doctors chose the next president?

Polls are notoriously unreliable this early in a presidential campaign, but that doesn't stop people from looking for clues. All sorts of indicators, from the stock market to the unemployment rate, have been used to make predictions.

Since 2008, the medical news site MedPage Today has surveyed physicians for their presidential preferences. The poll is undeniably unscientific, since it reflects only the views of those who chose to participate. However, it accurately predicted Barack Obama's victories in 2008 and 2012, and the results were relatively close to the actual margins of victory.

The results of this year's survey are again encouraging for the Democratic candidate. Medpage Today has surveyed physicians three times since May 2015, and Hillary Clinton has come out ahead every time by a wide margin.

In the most recent survey conducted in April, she led Donald Trump by 36% to 23%.

Of course, the latest survey was taken more than five months before Election Day. And it did not measure preferences in a head-to-head contest. At the time it was taken, Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz and John Kasich were still in the race.

But the survey does suggest some consistency in the political leanings of physicians, even after implementation of the Affordable Care Act. And that could be good news for Clinton, if they are still in sync with the rest of the electorate.

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