It's kind of funny how that list of states used to be very large, and now it's shrinking. And almost all of those where he "polls very well" used to be in the "Rudy is ahead" column.
If Giuliani is the GOP nominee, here's my prediction for the 2008 election . . . He's not going to win more than two of those nine states. And he's going to lose at least 2-3 states that Bush won in 2004.
You do the math and tell me how that translates into a GOP victory in 2008.
“It’s kind of funny how that list of states used to be very large, and now it’s shrinking. And almost all of those where he ‘polls very well’ used to be in the ‘Rudy is ahead’ column.”
Not so. I type away off the top of my head and the list is about the same. I have never put CA in his column because no matchup polls with Hillary have yet been taken. The polling has been exclusively within his own party. But I have said over and over on these threads that at the very least he will force Hillary to spend big bucks in that state. In OH he is tied with Hillary—that’s running very well in my book—in fact it’s amazing, considering how the Republican Party has collapsed in OH. In CT he is running ahead by as much as 16 points in some polls—but one poll showed him behind so I did not include that state in the “ahead” list this time around.
As for your prediction that he would win only two of these states—on what is that based? There’s no way he would lose NJ, FL, PA, RI or MI. One major reason is the heavy concentration of Italian-American voters in those states, most of whom would be very pro-Rudy. Their representation in key battleground states is considerable, certainly enough to give him the edge when coupled with his very high favorabilities among all other residents in these states. He’s now running ahead of Hillary in FL by double digits, for instance.
Rhode Island 199,077 19.0%
Connecticut 634,364 18.6%
New Jersey 1,503,637 17.9%
New York 2,737,146 14.4%
Massachusetts 860,079 13.5%
Pennsylvania 1,418,465 11.6%
Delaware 72,677 9.3%
New Hampshire 105,610 8.5%
Nevada 132,515 6.6%
Florida 1,003,977 6.3%
Vermont 38,835 6.4%
Ohio 675,749 6.0%
Illinois 744,274 6.0%
Maryland 267,573 5.1%
California 1,450,000 5%
Michigan 450952, 4.5.%
California has an Italian-American population of around 1.4 million—but percentage-wise, given the size of the population, it is not above 5%. Rudy’s appeal in CA is wholly due to his reputation as a leader and as a moderate Republican like Arnold. He polls very well there for the same reason Arnold is doing very well.