Posted on 02/12/2007 6:43:36 AM PST by areafiftyone
MANCHESTER, N.H. - New Hampshire residents likely to vote in the Republican presidential primary a year from now think more highly of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani than any of his rivals, a poll released Tuesday shows.
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Giuliani's net favorability rating — the proportion of people viewing him favorably minus the proportion viewing him unfavorably — was 56 percent, well ahead of Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), 32 percent, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, 26 percent, in the University of New Hampshire poll for WMUR-TV in Manchester.
"He's the lesser-known candidate, but he has that rock star quality," poll director Andy Smith said of Giuliani. "He has a charisma that was built after 9-11."
This long before an election, political professionals pay more attention to favorability than voters' choices if they had to vote today. McCain and Giuliani were essentially tied at about 27 percent on that question among likely GOP primary voters, followed by Romney at 13 percent and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 9 percent.
The GOP portion of the telephone poll reached 311 likely voters from Thursday to Monday and had an error margin of plus or minus 5.6 percentage points.
Former Sen. John Edwards and Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) had net favorability ratings ranging from 61 percent to 55 percent, too close to be statistically significant.
When asked for whom they would vote, 35 percent of likely Democratic voters picked Clinton, 21 percent Obama and 15 percent Edwards. Eight percent chose former Vice President Al Gore, who is not running.
The Democratic portion of the phone poll reached 353 likely voters and had an error margin of plus or minus 5.2 percentage points.
Independents may vote in either primary, and 68 percent of them indicated they planned to vote in the Democratic primary compared to 32 percent leaning toward the GOP contest.
"This will hurt Republican candidates who try to appeal to more moderate, independent voters," Smith said.
((((POLL PING))))
Indeed, in one recent poll, majorities of Republicans who were informed of Giuliani’s views on social issues said that they were either minor issues or no issues at all; only 16% said that they wouldn't vote for him after being informed of these views.
In the online GOP Bloggers poll, Giuliani is consistently one of the few candidates to end up with a net positive acceptability rating. These internet denizens are well-informed, and overwhelmingly self-describe as conservative (78% self-describe as 7 or higher on a 10-scale of conservatism). If these people can support Rudy, anyone can.
Human Events, Is Giuliani the Republican Peyton Manning,
2/6/07
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1780060/posts
It seems to me that unless we want a democrat to win the presidency in '08, we need to find a candidate that ALL republicans can get behind... Rudy is obviously not the right person.
We can't win if you siphon off the pro-life, pro-gun, and pro-marriage crowd. We've got to do better than Rudy if we have any intention of winning!
I would love to see what polls think of this rino in the south.
The pollsters are going to make a killing over the next two years.
Currently the polls are fairly high for him in the South. However, if and when he gets the nomination and the kid gloves of media come off, this support will plummet.
And it looks like we're going to see a repeat of the 2006 GOP purge.
Can't say I'm even surprised any more.
He is being propelled by name recognition and a leftist media. That will change soon enough.
Only 16%?????? That is huge. Say hello to President Hillary in a landslide and goodbye to America forever.
First off, I think Peyton IS a Republican, but if by "Giuliani, the Republican Peyton Manning" you mean overrated, smug, and stuck on himself, then yes, Giuliani is the Republican Peyton Manning.
i recall seeing him somewhere dressed in drag. that aint going to fly very well.
Do you remember the Reagan Democrats? Reagan got a lot of votes from Democrats (probably because he was a Democrat for a time) and he got a lot of votes from moderates.
If your average voter really knew his stances on social issues, they'd drop him like a red headed step-child!
Oh, please. You really need to go to charitable events a litte more often.
I've seen church members, priests, a mayor, and city councilmen dressed in drag for charitable events. It's a hoot and draw in people who wouldn't normally contribute relatively large sums of money to a charity.
Also, nearly ever Octoberfest in CT, the football players dressed in drag to raise money for new uniforms, etc.
So the candidate that 'everyone' must get behind must be a 100% social conservative. Good compromise.
And in a more recent poll, when social conservatives were informed about Giuliani's extreme positions on abortion, partial birth abortion, gun control and amnesty for illegal border invaders, 48% turned their backs on him.
Well, Rudy's got some questionable sexual orientation issues too. ;-)
Hey, I had a chance to slam both Manning AND Rudy...I couldn't pass it up!
See post #18
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