John Kasich

Ohio Gov. John Kasich waves as he arrives for a town hall meeting, Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016, in Livonia, Mich.

(Carlos Osorio, The Associated Press)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Despite lagging in support among Republican primary voters, Ohio Gov. John Kasich currently is the GOP's best chance by far against Hillary Clinton in the November election, a new national poll found.

The USA Today / Suffolk University poll, released Wednesday, found Kasich would beat Clinton 49 percent to 38 percent in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup. The next-closest Republican candidate is Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who the poll shows leading Clinton 48 percent to 42 percent.

The poll showed businessman Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz as being neck-and-neck with Clinton, 44 percent to 43 percent, and 45 to 44 percent, respectively. The margin of error for the poll, conducted between Feb. 11 and Feb. 15, is plus or minus 3 percent.

But Kasich does not fare so well with likely Republican primary voters, who actually will pick the Republican presidential candidate. In this group, Kasich polled at 7 percent, good for fourth place in the six-candidate primary race. Trump received 35 percent, followed by Cruz (20 percent), Rubio (16 percent), former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (6 percent) and Dr. Ben Carson (4 percent).

The poll supports a central argument from Kasich's presidential campaign -- that he stands the best chance in November against Clinton, the former U.S. senator and secretary of state who has been viewed as the most likely Democratic candidate.

But it also illustrates Kasich's main challenge -- convincing Republican voters, who so far have favored candidates perceived as political outsiders, to instead support a more-moderate Republican governor with longstanding ties to the government. While Kasich has managed to raise his profile with a second-place finish in this month's New Hampshire GOP primary, he clearly still has his work cut out for him.

Other interesting stuff in the poll:

- Among likely Democratic voters, Clinton leads Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders 50 percent to 40 percent. Were Sanders to be the Democratic nominee, he would narrowly lose a hypothetical matchup with Kasich, Rubio and Trump, but would defeat Cruz 45 percent to 42 percent.

- Women who participated in the poll narrowly favored Kasich over Clinton -- who would be the first female presidential nominee from a major political party -- in a hypothetical head-to-head match up, 44 percent to 43 percent. In this scenario, Kasich would gain just 9 percent support from Democrats, but 60 percent of independents said they would pick him over Clinton, the poll found.

- Kasich's support among GOP voters in the Midwest, which his campaign is targeting as an area of possible success, is only slightly better than elsewhere in the country. He polled in the Midwest at 10 percent, compared to 30 percent for Trump, 22 percent for Rubio and 18 percent for Cruz.

- The poll also contemplates what would happen were former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to jump into the race as a third-party candidate.

In a hypothetical three-way matchup between Bloomberg, Trump and Sanders, Trump led with 37 percent, Sanders got 30 percent and Bloomberg 16 percent. Bloomberg reportedly has told his allies that he likely will jump in the race if Sanders and Trump (or Cruz) are nominated.

A hypothetical matchup between just Trump and Sanders shows Trump leading 44 percent to 43 percent.

- President Barack Obama has a 40 percent approval rating, with a 51 percent disapproval rating. Meanwhile, 63 percent of poll respondents said they think the country is headed on the wrong track.