Election 2008: Clinton vs. Giuliani & Romney One Point Apart: Clinton and Giuliani, Clinton and Romney Saturday, December 22, 2007
In a general election match-up, both Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney find themselves in a toss-up with Hillary Clinton. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone shows Giuliani with a statistically insignificant 45% to 44% advantage over Clinton. Romney enjoys the same margin, nominally leads Clinton 44% to 43%.
Both Republicans have a decided advantage with male voters. Clinton has the advantage with female voters (see crosstabs).
Clinton and Giuliani have been trading generally insignificant leads for months. In the last four polls, Clinton led twice, Giuliani led twice. Earlier in December, it was Clinton by three. Both candidates have been within four points of the 45% mark in nine consecutive surveys (see history of this match-up).
However, while Giuliani has been competitive with the Democratic frontrunner all year, the current poll represents the best performance yet for Romney.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/election_2008_clinton_vs_giuliani_romney
The internals are a lot more reliable than the horse race numbers. Romney has always had the highest negatives of all the GOP candidates.
Here is another internal that should cause you concern from Rasmusssen:
“Romney is now viewed as politically conservative by 38% of Republican voters and moderate or liberal by 43%. Those figures reflect an eight-point decline in the number seeing him as conservative and a ten-point increase in the number seeing him as moderate or liberal.”
In other words, as people focus on the race, they are seeing Romney for what he is-a liberal. BTW, Fred Thompson is once again seen as the most conservative candidate in the GOP field(with 50% saying he is conservative), which is where he was when he was leading the pack in Rasmussen in September and October. These perceptions are a leading indicator of where the race is heading, since the GOP is still at its core conservative. the horse race numbers follow these perceptions.
Romney at his core is not conservative, and people can see that in spite of his spinmeisters.