Friday, January 11, 2008

Clinton, McCain Top National Poll

As the campaigns start to fan out, national polls start to become more relevant. A new CNN/Opinion poll, shows a seismic shift on the Republican side, Clinton leading, with some caveats, on the Democratic side

Dems:
Clinton is at 49 percent in the new poll, up nine points from the December survey, with Obama at 36 percent, which is a six-point gain from his December standing.

Obama finished first in Iowa's Democratic caucuses. Clinton won in New Hampshire.

"Clinton has re-established herself as the Democratic front-runner, especially among Democratic women," Schneider said.

Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina is a distant third, at 12 percent, with Rep. Dennis Kucinich at 1 percent. The sampling error for the Democratic results is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

A national poll is more telling on the Democratic side, because we already know that Super Tuesday will be the focus, the "national primary". Interesting, that both Clinton and Obama have gained support, as the other candidates drop out. In the poll internals, we have this tidbit:

Suppose the only Democratic candidates were Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Which of those
two would you support?

Clinton 53%
Obama 44%
Neither (vol.) 3%
No opinion 1%

With Edwards eliminated, Obama picks up 2/3rds of his support.

On the Republican side, McCain's rise is staggering, a combination of momentum and Guiliani fading badly:
McCain has the support of 34 percent of registered Republicans in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey out Friday. That's a 21-point jump from the last CNN/Opinion Research poll, taken in December, well before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary earlier this month.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who won the Iowa Republican caucuses, is in second place in the new survey, with 21 percent of those registered Republicans polled supporting him for the GOP nomination.

Rudy Giuliani follows with 18 percent, a drop of six points from the December poll, when the former New York City mayor was the front-runner.

"Only McCain gained support among Republicans nationally. McCain's now the clear Republican front-runner," said Bill Schneider, CNN senior political analyst.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is in fourth place, with the backing of 14 percent of registered Republicans, with former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee at 6 percent, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas at 5 percent, and Rep. Duncan Hunter of California at 1 percent.

The GOP race is still wide open, with critical contests looming Michigan and South Carolina. That fact makes this national poll less predictive than the one for the Democrats, but that said, McCain is clearly emerging as the frontrunner.

Guiliani's Florida strategy is imploding fast, just today he was forced to hold the pay for staff. McCain is benefiting from Guiliani's decline, and a new Florida offering demonstrates the folly of sitting on the sidelines for so long. Guiliani's once solid lead is gone:
McCain 27%
Guiliani 19%
Huckabee 17%
Romney 17%

10 comments:

Oxford County Liberals said...

Well then, that makes Daily Kos's plan to have Dems in Michigan vote for Romney to help him win there sounding better and better by the minute! ;) As one progressive who saw our discussion at my site told me, "politics is is war", and he'd have no hesitation supporting this campaign.

Anonymous said...

"Interesting, that both Clinton and Obama have gained support as other candidates drop out"

Now there's some rocket science.

Have any other earth shattering insight or predictions for us today Steve?

The frontrunners gain support as others drop out. Who'd have seen that one coming?

Oxford County Liberals said...

I'd love to see the IP #'s of all these anonymous trolls you've had of late.

Steve V said...

scott

The good news, it doesn't seem to be a hit with the Michigan Dems. Markos might be worth .25% of the vote ;)

anon

zzzzzzzz

Oxford County Liberals said...

Steve: I'd be careful who you're assuming are "the Michigan Dems" at Kos. If you claim that Kos is only a section of the Dems, then the same can be said for the people who are commenting there at the comments section, plus a lot of the naysayers arent even from Michigan.

That newsletter that Kos has drafted up is going to be sent to a lot of Michigan Dem voters, and those that don't read blogs will be the ones getting this.

FoxNews and Air America have already reported it. Not bad for a "fringe site" ;)

Steve V said...

scott

The problem is that McCain is getting crossover Dems too, not to mention independents who break heavily to him. Another poll tonight, with McCain up 7. Some people are jumping on this, but I suspect it won't be as many as you think. Do you really believe Markos can type something on his blog, and that will mobilize the masses to hatch his plan? Sure he has influence, but let's remember, when you omit multiple visits, there is only a core of 50000 people on DKos, the traffic has been flat for over 2years. Watch when Markos puts up a presidential poll, he might get 16000 votes. The site has about 150000 users registered. That includes everyone since 2003, and the vast majority of them are long gone. You probably have about 20-30000 Dems who visit the site. Sure, there are more, when you factor in the satellite sites, all the free coverage with links, but I don't think it helpful to project some influence on to Markos that isn't there. Does he yield some power, sure, he's always been a good entrepeneur. That said, the online community isn't quite there yet, more than in Canada by a mile, but it's not the big time, when you look past the hype. Not yet. BTW, I've never considered Markos to be a progressive, he's a businessman first, who hated the war and had great sauvy.

Oxford County Liberals said...

Steve: just did a follow-up posting at my site about some of this stuff. I won't pollute the board with the link.. you know where to find me ;)

Anonymous said...

Please see Ipsos canada..opposite of decima except for jack ...they are trying to make him support steve as steve is not doing so good....sorry tobring canada up

Steve V said...

anon

I did a post on the Ipsos poll

"sorry to bring Canada up"

Please do :)

Anonymous said...

I just read an article about the fact that men - of any race/colour - got the right to vote "50 years" prior to women.

So, it's still about a "man" winning, whatever colour he is.

Why aren't the US women fighting harder on this alone?

I bet if it was brought up things/polls, etc. would change.