It’s one poll and it’s Zogby, but it can’t be anything but a headache for the Clinton campaign.
The 2008 Democratic presidential race has tightened, with Barack Obama gaining on front-runner Hillary Clinton six weeks before the first contest, according to a national Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday…
The 2008 Democratic presidential race has tightened, with Barack Obama gaining on front-runner Hillary Clinton six weeks before the first contest, according to a national Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.
The poll was taken Nov 14-17, so it does take a couple of days after the Nevada debate into account. If that debate was seen as a truly strong performance on Clinton’s part, she may widen that gap back out again.
As for the GOP side, it’s still Rudy.
In the Republican race, Giuliani widened his lead over Thompson to 14 points, 29 percent to 15 percent, compared to last month’s 28 percent to 20 percent lead.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee jumped over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney into third place. Huckabee had 11 percent, with Romney and Arizona Sen. John McCain at 9 percent.
A growing number of Republicans, 21 percent, said they have not made up their mind, leaving room for more changes in the field. The shifting numbers, after months of a relatively static race, could indicate voters around the country are beginning to pay attention to the 2008 race, Zogby said.
“There is a real fluidity to both races,” he said.
In Iowa, one of the two races that matter most right now, that ABC poll that Allah discussed earlier in the week had Obama leaping up to pass Clinton (though within the poll’s margin of error) with Edwards dropping to third. But, that’s just one poll. The RealClearPolitics averages still have Clinton up by 19 points nationally over Obama and leading in Iowa by a deuce, more or less. And she’s way up in New Hampshire. Romney still leads in both, while he’s third nationally.
Taken together, Hillary’s bad weeks don’t spell defeat for her yet, but it might be time to chip away at the first two letters in “inevitable.” Obama can catch her and if there’s momentum on the Dem side it’s probably with him. On the GOP side, it’s a complete scramble as Giuliani, Thompson, Romney, McCain and Huckabee are all running wildly differing strategies that treat the early primaries in entirely different ways. While the national polls say the money should be on Giuliani at this point, Romney’s leads in the early states and Huckabee’s recent surge plus the fact that 21% of GOP voters haven’t made up their mind (and that number is on the uptick according to Zogby) tell me that just about anything is still possible.
Update: Well, like I said, anything is possible. Iowa’s primary is Jan 3. Now, New Hampshire’s will take place on January 6 and Michigan has been cleared to go on the 15th. The first three primaries in the space of 12 days.
Update: Checking the most recent Michigan polls (Nov 15), Clinton is up by 31 on the Dem side and Giuliani is up by 3 on the GOP side (within the margin of error). So Clinton and Romney could both sweep the first three on their respective sides, putting both in very strong positions. But, if Giuliani maintains his lead and takes Michigan from Romney, then I have to think that that makes Rudy’s position going into the next round of primaries stronger than Romney even if Romney wins both Iowa and New Hampshire. So Michigan becomes something close to a must-win for both Rudy and Romney by having its primary so close to the first two.
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