Posted on 10/04/2007 9:38:23 AM PDT by TitansAFC
If Rudy Giuliani wins the Republican nomination and a third party campaign is backed by Christian conservative leaders, 27% of Republican voters say they’d vote for the third party option rather than Giuliani. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that a three-way race with Hillary Clinton would end up with the former First Lady getting 46% of the vote, Giuliani with 30% and the third-party option picking up 14%. In head-to-head match-ups with Clinton, Giuliani is much more competitive.
Over this past weekend, several Christian conservative leaders indicated they might back a pro-life, third-party, candidate if Giuliani wins the nomination.
The latest poll highlights the potential challenges for Giuliani, but the numbers must be considered in context. A generic third-party candidate may attract 14% of the vote in the abstract at this time. However, if a specific candidate is chosen, that person would likely attract less support due to a variety of factors. Almost all third party candidates poll higher earlier in a campaign and their numbers diminish as election day approaches. Ultimately, of course, some Republicans would have to face the question of whether to vote for Giuliani or help elect a Democrat.
The telephone survey found that 17% of Republicans believe it’s Very Likely conservative leaders would back a Pro-Life candidate if Giuliani is nominated. Another 32% believe it is Somewhat Likely. Among all voters, 22% think a third party approach is Very Likely and another 33% say it’s Somewhat Likely.
Most Republican voters consider themselves Pro-Life on the issue of Abortion. Most Democrats and Unaffiliated Voters are Pro-Choice.
The bigger question for Giuliani might be how this possible challenge from the right might affect perceptions of his electability. Currently, Giuliani is seen as the most electable Republican candidate which helps overcome concerns that some have about his ideology. A survey conducted earlier this month found that 72% of Republicans think Giuliani is at least Somewhat Likely to win the White House if nominated. However, the current survey finds that number falling to 58% if Christian conservatives back a third-party option.
With a third-party option on the table, only 18% of Republicans believe Giuliani would be Very Likely to win the election if nominated. That’s down from 31% in a two-way race.
Among all voters, 49% say Giuliani is at least Somewhat Likely to win a two-way match-up. That falls to 43% with a third party candidate in the mix.
Electability is a crucial issue for Giuliani because two-thirds of Republican voters seen him as politically moderate or liberal. That is a challenge unto itself in a political party where most primary voters consider themselves politically conservative. Fred Thompson is currently viewed as the most conservative candidate in the field.
Three of the last four Presidential elections have seen a candidate win with less than 50% of the total votes cast. If Hillary Clinton wins the Democratic Presidential nomination, there is a very reasonable possibility that neither major party candidate would top the 50% mark in Election 2008. With such a scenario, third party candidates on either side of the political spectrum could play a significant role by peeling away one or two percentage points of the vote.
Clinton is currently leading the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination, but her victory is not inevitable. Among Republicans, Thompson and Giuliani lead in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll.
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Rasmussen Reports is an electronic publishing firm specializing in the collection, publication, and distribution of public opinion polling information.
The Rasmussen Reports ElectionEdge™ Premium Service for Election 2008 offers the most comprehensive public opinion coverage ever provided for a Presidential election.
Rasmussen Reports’ Election 2006 coverage has been praised for its accuracy and reliability. Michael Barone, Senior Writer for U.S. News & World Report and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics, mentions, “One clear lesson from the Republican victory of 2004 and the Democratic victory of 2006 is that the best place to look for polls that are spot on is RasmussenReports.com." And University of Virginia Professor Larry Sabato states, “In election campaigns, I’ve learned to look for the Rasmussen results. In my experience, they are right on the money. There is no question Rasmussen produces some of the most accurate and reliable polls in the country today.”
Rasmussen Reports was also the nation's most accurate polling firm during the 2004 Presidential election and the only one to project both Bush and Kerry's vote total within half a percentage point of the actual outcome.
During both Election 2004 and Election 2006, RasmussenReports.com was the top-ranked public opinion research site on the web. We had twice as many visitors as our nearest competitor and nearly as many as all competitors combined.
Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports, has been an independent pollster for more than a decade.
Bloomberg was trying to reduce the vote totals for Republicans so that Hillary Matters could win with a 43% vote total like BJ did. Only problem he found zero support among anyone, except Democrats. Hence he dropped the whole notion of wasting money to try and help out Hillary Matters.
Dobson will find the same fate.
On the off chance that he might peek in from time to time, I pinged him.
He was quite insistent that hardly any social conservatives would abandon the baby murderer, should he receive the nomination.
sitetest
If find it offensive that they are threatening the party with CERTAIN defeat if they don't get their way.
To hell with them. I wish they'd all leave now so we can start the process of reformulation.
The thing is, he never would...
...make any such promise.
...keep it if he made it.
Courageous like Abraham, America's Major: Rudy Giuliani could save our civilization from the terrorist hordes. And Abraham saved Sodom and Gomorrah for what??? Gay Pride? Divine annihilation?
I can't vote for the man.
Better eight years than a thousand years.
Pinging the religious right.
The Platform, you mean that document that nobody ever reads, and immediately vanishes from living memory? And a convention of Giuliani delegates, about to nominate Rudy, will write a platform opposing almost everythinmg he stands for and which he will promptly repudiate! Give me a break!!
Rudy will have this nomination locked up by Feb...Thompson might win a few southern states, but everything west of the rockies...and everything north of the Mason-Dixon will go to Rudy in the primaries...along with most of the mid-west.
“Let me know when you’re ready to discuss the bridge sale.
“
You mean the Rudy “bridge to somewhere” versus the Hillary “bridge to nowhere”?
Nobody’s threatening anything. Conservatives are just restating what should be a given: we don’t vote for liberals.
If you’d like to nominate a liberal, go ahead. Just don’t act all betrayed when we don’t vote for him and he gets slaughtered in the general.
This isn’t real complicated stuff.
They never seem to have the answeres for those kind of questions.
(note; did not ping the other participant in the debate as I was not referring “just” to him)
If it turns out that the conservative vote for POTUS is split b/t the GOP and a pro-life third party come-lately...
WE HAD BETTER BE DAMNED CERTAIN TO GET CONTROL OF THE HOUSE AND SENATE!!!!
This thread is a perfect representative proof that the GOP would lose the Whitehouse. And to use FR as a representative sampling is to use some of the most conservative of GOP voters to survey. If the most conservative voters would split the vote, then...well then...Mene Mene Tarkel Uparshin...numbered, numbered, weighed, divided...the Republic will fall into the hands of the enemies of freedom.
I am strongly pro-life and do not desire to cast asparagus upon other pro-life folks who would vote their conscience. Hell I’ve done it and in hindsight I was wrong to do so. However, in the event of a 3rd party split, I’d HAVE to support the GOP. America is the last flickering light of freedom’s hope upon the planet. We ARE the free world. If the socialists take over the USA that light is put out.
We had better be willing to get off of our arses and stomp the pavement for votes to win back the two houses.
We must hold back this tide of leftists. Rush said it well yesterday when he said that these people CANNOT be allowed to take over our government. If they do, we may never get it back.
These are not John F. Kennedy democrats, these are statists, leftists, socialists, anarchists, and one-step-away-from-communists.
The congressional reigns on the beast better be tight and short, or we could lose the Republic to her Leftist Socialist Utopia.
Social conservative are not and have never been reliable GOP voters.
Yeah, right. Folks used the same argument with Schwarzenegger who has joined with Democrats in implementing their agenda and marginalizing conservatives all the way.
The way to fight liberalism is to be strongly aligned against it, not let it into your own backyard.
I’m not sure what Dobson has to do with anything. Until this post, I don’t think I’ve ever even mentioned the man’s name here.
But don’t let that fact interfere with the pro-abort republicrat fantasy that all pro-lifers sit around eagerly awaiting James Dobson’s voting instructions. If that makes things nice, neat and easy to understand for you, have at it.
“Also if we wanted to prevent fraud, we should have been watching the voting machines from day before yesterday. (so to speak)”
And, on top of that, the Dems won’t count all of the military votes.
And don't fool yourselves about 'winning back Congress in 2010' or 'winning back the White House in 2012'. It ain't gonna happen: Stalin-in-a-pants-suit will rig the system to prevent it. Here's how:
1. Impose the Fairness Doctrine by executive order to shut down talk radio (silence the opposition)
2. Expand entitlements to create a majority dependent on government services (guaranteed 'Rat voting bloc)
3. Ram through an illegal alien amnesty that will make GWB's failed 'comprehensive' bill seem conservative (another guaranteed 'Rat voting bloc)
That's just for starters. And God forbid we'd get hit with a terrorist attack on her watch: the first thing she'll do is take away guns from law-abiding citizens. Then she'll make Muslims a protected class and prosecute anyone who says anything negative about them under hate-crimes laws.
After 8 years of her reign, we will no longer recognize the United States of America.
Think Rudy will be bad? Consider the alternative. I rest my case.
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