Post Debate Polls: Clinton Has Momentum, GOP Race Tightens

real clear politics ^ | 5/8/07 | JOHN MCINTYRE

[finnman69]

USA Today/Gallup has a rather extensive post-debate poll out on both the Democratic and Republican fields in the race for the White House.

Since January in the GOP field Rudy Giuliani has ranged from 31% - 44% and comes in at 34% in this most recent Gallup poll. John McCain ranges from 16% - 27% (20% today) and Mitt Romney 3% - 9% (7% today). Interestingly, of the "Big Three" announced candidates all of them lost support from Gallup's previous poll (Giuliani -1, McCain -2, Romney -2) while the two heavyweights who were not on stage at last week's debate picked up points (Fred Thompson +3, Newt Gingrich +1).

On the Democratic side in Gallup's survey Hillary Clinton has a 15-point lead over Barack Obama, similar to Giuliani's 14-point lead over McCain. Clinton’s horserace number has ranged from 29% - 40% since the beginning of the year and comes in at 38% today. Obama has ranged from 19% - 26% (23% today) and John Edwards 9% - 16% (12% today). Both Obama and Edwards lost 3 and 4 points respectively from Gallup's previous poll, while Clinton picked up 7 points.

Like the Gallup poll, Clinton also jumped 10 points in the CNN/Opinion Research post-debate poll, which also comports with Rasmussen's post-debate Democratic poll showing a 6-point boost for Clinton. In the RCP Average Clinton's lead has bumped back up into double-digits again to 11.8 points as compared to 9.6 points pre-debate.

The Republican side of the Opinion Research poll shows a much tighter race, giving Giuliani a small 2-point lead, but that is a little misleading as their previous pre-debate poll only had Giuliani ahead by 3. However, Giuliani's lead has shrunk to single digits in the RCP Average from 10.2 points pre-debate to 7.8 points today.

So in the Democratic field it looks like Senator Clinton has established some clear momentum coming out of the Democrats' first debate. It looks like less has changed on the Republican side as McCain, Romney and Thompson are holding steady with Giuliani continuing a slow drop. However, it is still only three full days out of the GOP debate (2 of those weekend days) and it will be interesting to see if future polls show an accelerating deterioration for Giuliani's lead or a stabilization but with a smaller lead. (Today's story from Jonathan Martin at Politico about Giuliani's donations to Planned Parenthood in the 1990s will not make it any easier for the Giuliani campaign to manage post-debate fallout on the abortion issue.)

Neither Opinion Research or Gallup have head-to-head results, but Gallup did release favorable/unfavorable numbers of all the major candidates. Clinton has the highest unfavorables of all the candidates coming in at a very high 47% (50% favorable, 47% unfavorable), whereas Giuliani has the highest favorable rating of all candidates at 61% (61/24). Giuliani's +37-point favorability spread easily trumps Obama, who has the next best favorability spread at +26-points; McCain is third at +20-points. Clinton's anemic +3-point favorable rating is by far the lowest of all the major candidates, though it is at least back in positive territory after turning negative for the first time in Gallup's April poll.

Simplistically, it is the GOP frontrunners' substantial edge in favorability (particularly vis-a-vis Hillary) that is offsetting the massive generic edge the Democratic party currently has over the GOP. Between now and January, Democrats are going to continually ask themselves if they really want to nominate a candidate with unfavorables solidly in the 40s, 18 months before the general, when so much else is working in their favor.

[finnman69]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/polls/tables/live/2007-05-07-poll.htm

USA today poll mentioned

[Question Liberal Authority]

Neither Opinion Research or Gallup have head-to-head results

Gawrsh. I wonder why that is?

[finnman69]

Very little change since March

2. (Asked of Republicans and independents who lean to the Republican Party) Which of the following candidates would you be most likely to support for the Republican nomination for President in the year 2008?

BASED ON 427 REPUBLICANS AND REPUBLICAN LEANERS               

	May 4-6, 2007	Apr 13-15, 2007	Apr 2-5, 2007	Mar 23-25, 2007	Mar 2-4, 2007	Feb 9-11, 2007	Jan 12-14, 2007
Rudy Giuliani	34	35	38	31	44	40	31
John McCain	20	22	16	22	20	24	27
Fred Thompson	13	10	10	12	N/A	N/A	N/A
Newt Gingrich	8	7	10	8	9	9	10
Mitt Romney	7	9	6	3	8	5	7
Tommy Thompson	2	1	2	2	2	2	2
George Pataki	1	2	2	*	1	1	3
Chuck Hagel	1	--	1	*	*	1	1
Sam Brownback	1	1	1	3	1	3	1
Mike Huckabee	1	2	1	1	*	2	1
Duncan Hunter	1	*	1	*	1	1	*
Jim Gilmore	1	2	*	*	*	2	2
Tom Tancredo	1	*	2	1	1	1	N/A
Ron Paul	*	2	2	1	N/A	N/A	N/A
Other	*	1	1	2	2	1	3
None	3	2	2	3	3	2	3
All/any	--	--	*	1	*	--	--
No opinion	7	3	4	9	8	7	10

[MeanWestTexan]

It’s gonna be Fred.

Rudy McRomney has peaked. A vote for Gingrich is a vote for Fred. McCain people will break to Fred, as will all but a few percentages of the remainder.

[trisham]

My vote isn’t poll-driven.