A new poll of women nationwide shows just how steep Mitt Romney will have to climb to get out of the crater he’s in with respect to women’s vote, but indicates he could have an opening if he can win the one issue he’s been banking on all along: the economy.

A full 52 percent of the women surveyed for Lifetime Television for a poll out on Monday back President Obama, while 36 percent support Romney. A plurality of those women, 47 percent, say jobs and the economy is the most important issue, with healthcare coming in a distant second.

{mosads}Fifty percent of women would give Obama a positive grade as president, and only 31 percent of those polled think Romney will do a better job than Obama if he’s elected in November — with 43 percent surveyed saying he’ll do worse and 29 percent of those women saying he’d do “much worse.”

The poll could give Hillary Clinton a reason to rethink her assertion that she’ll be stepping down from politics after she completes her service in the current Obama administration. Sixty percent of those polled say Clinton should run for president in 2016, and 58 percent say they’ll vote for her if she does — more than the total support Obama’s got this year.

The survey was conducted among 1,003 women from Aug. 3-11 by the polling company, Inc./Woman Trend and Lake Research Partners, and has a margin of error of 3.1 percent.