If Rudy was a conservative, he’d had a majority of the republicans supporting him, instead of being stuck at under 40% even though the next two candidates can’t scrape together their own reasonable base of support.
Hillary does better in the democrat polls even with two strong and well-known adversaries.
On the republican side, what is clear is that a majority of republicans don’t like either of the candidates the media says are our front-runners, even though both are personally well-liked (having strong positive/negative numbers).
When you are well-liked as Rudy and John McCain, and as well-known as the two, and you can’t pull close to a majority of the voters, it’s a sign of real trouble.
If there were no other announced republican candidates, I doubt Rudy would get more than 50% in a poll of republicans. That’s what the polls show us.
That's one thing many social conservatives don't care about---winning.